


Convergence

by LaLaCat1



Series: Dimension Hopping [2]
Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:34:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 62,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaLaCat1/pseuds/LaLaCat1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Reach Invasion, Dick finds himself questioning the life he chose, Artemis finds herself mourning a life she dreamed of, and Bart find himself fearing the life he's been gifted. Meanwhile, Wally wakes to a world not his own, but at least Jason is a familiar face to guide him home. Sequel to Collide</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, on my end it looks like the tags keep putting a "Number One from Star Trek" as a character in the story...Number One from Star trek isn't in this story, sorry. It just wont let me get rid of the tag

Jason hated doing patrols in the rain. Gotham was grimy, messy, slimy and stick-to-your-legs dirty when it was dry, things just got worse when the nights were wet as well. As an added bounce, all the truly messed up individuals the city had to offer seemed to like the rain. They raced out into the streets like rats running back onto a sinking ship. That was kind of Gotham in a nutshell; the sinking ship that pulled others down with its undertow.

There was a fundamental difference between how Dick and Jason saw the city. Jason knew Gotham was out to get him, Dick did not. Hell, even Bruce had thought the city was on his side, deep down. After everything that the city threw at them, Jason would have thought Dick had learned his lesson, realized the city was a cesspool and needed to be approached like a hostile enemy at all times. He thought Dick knew to watch his own god damned back.

Maybe, if Bruce had let Jason or Dick work with him more on patrols he wouldn't be dead now.

And maybe Jason was bitter and who the hell cared if that was true?

With Bruce dead someone had to take up the mantle of Batman, and really, there was no way Bruce's little two-foot tall demon child was going to be dawning that particular title any time soon, even if Damian had managed to weasel his way into a Robin suit. Dick offered the cowl to Jason, way back in the beginning, when everything was still raw and bleeding, but they both knew who the better choice was. Personally, Jason thought Dick was afraid of stepping into those shoes, like he had every right to.

'Todd, if you planed on spending the evening in reminiscence you should have stayed home," Damian said, only just loud enough to be heard over the pounding of rain drops on the stone roof.

Jason glanced back at Robin, version 3.0, and rolled his eyes behind his red mask. Talia and Ra's had given the kid a dangerously inflated ego. Being ruthless didn't mean you were going to survive Gotham, but Damian didn't seem to realize that. Jason still remembered the first time the kid went out on patrol with Bruce, days before Bruce died. Dick was still in Central City at the time, helping the Flash (Wally was way less annoying in this world then he had been on the Other Earth), so Bruce contacted Jason. He hadn't come right out and said it, but it was clear from his hedging that Bruce wanted someone extra there to keep an eye on the kid. Always helped to have two sets of eyes watching out when throwing a ten year old at crime.

The fact that Jason disapproved of the whole venture was made very clear to Bruce.

Damian made it just as clear that he would patrol Gotham decked out as Robin whether he was given permission to or not.

They stopped a robbery that had taken a drastic turn towards sexual violence. Two guys in sky masks boasting about taking turns with the wife and kids of the jeweler that lived above the shop they were robbing. It always surprised Jason that people ran towards the sounds of trouble in this city. Damian hamstringed one of the guys and nearly skewered the one trying to force himself on the jeweler's teenage son.

Bruce stopped him from doing anything fatal.

Jason would have let the kid kill both perpetrators and not lose any sleep over it.

Which was why he found it a little strange that Dick was having him go out on patrol with the Baby Bird. It felt like emotional black mail. Dick had to make an appearance at the Wayne Enterprise Gala, and Damian was going to hit the streets with or without someone there to loom in the Batsuit.

"Just keep an eye on him. Keep him from hurting himself….or anyone else. Please, as soon as I can, I'll slip away and find you both, but I don't want him out there alone," Dick'd sounded stressed, even over the phone. Between inheriting Bruce's burdens with the Batsuit, Wayne Enterprises and a small, nasty kid he was running himself raged. He sounded like shit, knew it, and knew Jason wasn't going to say no.

It was really hard to say no when part of Jason still saw that little boy from the Other Earth every time he looked at Dick. Also, Jason kind of liked his version of Richard Grayson was well.

So here he was, in the rain, watching Damian, waiting for something to happen, and wishing he wasn't on babysitter duty tonight.

"Cool it, 3.0, I'm as focused as you are," he said, waving Damian's comment away with a soggy, gloved hand.

Damian snorted and leaned cluster to the edge of the building. They had already stopped three muggings and one armed robbery tonight. Nights like tonight were about moving fast and staying alert, not about long stakeouts. Brake time at the moment was more to let Damian calm down after the last mugging then anything else. Kid got pissed when other kids felt Gotham's bite. Jason commiserated, but Damian had to get that in check. He couldn't fly off the handle every time anyone pointed a knife at a teenager. It was a very easy, very visible weakness. Someone would exploit it and someone would kill him.

"I doubt that. You're hardly a paradigm of focus or honesty," Damian quipped, still scanning the streets below them.

Jason rolled his eyes and reminded himself that smacking the kid would only encourage him. "And you're reckless and have bad taste in costumes, but I wasn't going to make this personal."

Damian's head snapped around so that Jason could watch the white of the mask covering his eyes narrow into slits. The ridiculous cape and hood combo the kid sported were soggy with rain, despite the water resistant coating. More water was pulling on the top of the hood, so that it was beginning to droop over the kid's brow. One strong tug and the thing would fall and cover Damian's face completely.

Impractical. Dangerous. Jason would have to bring that up with Dick later.

"And that immaturity isn't something you think is questionable? I'm shocked Grayson even lets you walk these streets with that guise if you're so flippant about your work," Damian said, voice louder now against the rain.

Jason rolled his eyes again, realized Damian couldn't see the motion and settled for lifting his shoulders up and dropping them in as juvenile a gesture as he could manage. "It's not flippancy. I know restraint."

"You know how to feel shame over your past convictions. I know what you were like, Todd. Five years ago you would have killed all of the criminals we encountered tonight. Now, you seem ready to walk them home and tuck them into bed. I expect as muck from Grayson, but you at least should know better," Damian hissed. There was so much righteous fury, so much anger in such a small package, and Jason just felt tired. That was what he'd been like, not too long ago. Angry, violent, and convinced he knew best.

It's what came from interacting with Ra's Al Ghul and his daughter. It's was came from raising a child to think that killing was the only way to get his father's love. Kind of hurt to watch; it hit a little too close to home.

"Listen, this isn't about—"

Something exploded on street level with the force of a sonic boom. The sound reached them first, scratching at Jason's eardrums so that a burning ring followed in its wake. Something wet was dribbling along the inside of his ears that definitely wasn't rain. Possible rupture. He moved on instinct. Jason snatched one of Damian's arms, ignoring the way the kid was pawing at his ears under the green hood. He pulled Damian in close and spun so Jason's back was facing the edge of the building before forcing them both down flat against the stones.

The shockwave followed the sound seconds later. It shattered the glass in the windows all around them, so many that Jason could hear it over the rain. Water pelted like rocks into the leather of his jacket, and Jason curled more securely around Damian, shielding him from as much of the blast as possible. Small, loose chunks of stone broke free and one bounced off the back of the red mask hard enough that it hurt even through the metal. The building shook.

And then everything settled under the steady beat of rain once more.

Well, fuck, Jason thought, uncurling just enough to glance over his shoulder. The raised stone ledge of the roof had crumbling groves knocked out of it. A hard jab caught Jason under the ribs. He cursed. Damian drove his elbow into the same sore spot once more and rolled away as soon as Jason eased his grip. Ungrateful punk.

"What was that?" Damian didn't wait for a response. He darted around Jason, who was climbing to his feet, and peered over the ledge. Jason was pleased to see Damian staid far enough away from the edge that, should the stones become loose, he would have time to get clear.

"I have no idea." Other than a bomb, Jason was at a loss. And Dick would be pissed if either Damian or Jason got themselves hurt poking around something quite obviously dangerous without him there for backup.

Sucks to be Dick then, because Jason's curiosity was already eating at him.

Damian reached down to his belt, pulled free his grappling line and shot it off at the most stable looking outcrop on the building across from their own. Jason followed him on down. The windows they fell past were crushed and blow inwards, the rooms beyond dark and still. For once, no one seemed all that interested in exploring the source of the disturbance.

Jason gave it about five minutes before curiosity won over fear and either the GPD or residence of the area found their way to the street.

There was someone lying on the ground. Smack dab in the center of the road. There was a crater in the perfect shape of a circle around him. Cracks slithered out from the circle like discarded bolts of lightning. The figure in the center of the circle laid face down, water slowly but steady accumulating around him, and did not move. Even in the gloom, the orange and red where clear.

"Aw, crap."

Jason darted past Damian, ignoring the protest when he pushed the boy behind him. The uniform was recognizable. He'd seen it before. Five years wasn't enough time to forget how much of an eye sore Kid Flash was. Although, not so much of a kid anymore. The "kid" had sprouted like a fucking weed. Jason ran his fingers along neck and spine, just to be safe, and then turned Wall West over onto his back. His lips were bloodless and his skin ashen, but there was a pulse.

"Call home. Tell Alfred we've got someone injured and in need of medical attention," said Jason, clipped and stern.

Damian's face scrunched up behind the mask. "What? Why? I don't know him, and just because he's wearing a suit that looks like the Flash's doesn't mean he's trustworthy. We can't bring him back to the cave."

"Make the call. Now."

For one long moment Jason was sure the order would be ignored. He didn't have time to deal with Damian's attitude right now. The simple truth was, there was no Kid Flash in this world. Not now. Wally West was the Flash, same as Dick was Batman. This Wally West looked about the age Jason was when he'd taken his little inter-dimensional trip to the Other Earth. In five years, no one from that world had come to this one. He'd tried to go back once, just to say hello, just to see how the younger version of Dick was faring in his world, but it just wasn't possible. Whatever scientific magic needed to make that trip hadn't found its way to Bruce in this world, and there was no way in hell this version of Super Boy Scout was going to play Energizer Bunny to facilitate the trip.

What that all boiled down to was; bad. Very bad. If Wally was here now, it wasn't for anything good. If anyone on the Other Earth could have made the trip again safely, they would have. So what the hell was Wally doing here now?

Wally hurt. Like hell. Like, really, really, really bad shin splints and pulled ligaments, and ending up on the losing end of a sparring match with Conner all at once. His bones felt like jelly. There was the strong possibility that his brain was leaking out his ears, because something wet was trailing down his neck and brain juice seemed like a logical conclusion.

Artemis was going to be so mad at him. Not for long, because he was dead, but in the moment she'd want to kick his ass. Wally figured he deserved it. After how much convincing he'd needed to agree to the whole "my girlfriend is dead" scam, all the nights he's laid awake terrified something was going to happened to her, all the grief he'd given Dick towards the end about the danger, and Wally went and got himself killed? Not cool. Not cool at all.

Except, being dead normally meant there wasn't someone wiping away the brain juice from your neck…So, that was unexpected.

"Your friend is waking up," said someone young and high pitched. A kid. Like, a younger-then-Bart kind of kid.

"Indeed, Master Jason, Master Richard, if you please?"

Wally's eyes shot open so fast they actually hurt. Only, he was having a really hard time figuring out who or what he was seeing, because everything was a massive swirling mix of color at the moment. But he knew that voice, would know it until his dying day, because one did not break an expensive flower pot while visiting Dick Grayson and forget the guilt inducing "It's quite all right" Alfred responded with. Alfred did disappointment better than either Mom or Dad ever managed.

"How are you feeling?" said another voice. Wally recognized that one too, but in a distant, song-he'd-heard-years-ago kind of way. There was a guy with dark hair and blue-ish eyes coming into focused in front of Wally, Dick peering over his shoulder and for a long time Wally just blinked and breathed. Blinked and breathed. He could do that, nice and slow, he could do that.

"Jason?" he asked at last.

Jason grinned, the corners of his lips stretching in the same lopsided, fond way that Wally remembered a younger boy smiling once. That boy was dead. Had been for a long time.

"You're old."

Jason laughed. They were in the Batecave. Dick was older too. Wally had no idea who the kid scowling from over by the computer monitors was, because it wasn't Tim. There was no sign of Bruce, but he'd turn up eventually. Alfred glided back into view with a glass of water. He tilted Wally's head up, pressed the glass closer with smooth motions, and Wally gulped half of it down in one go.

"What's going on?" he asked, once he'd swallowed the last of the water. Alfred allowed him to gently settle back on the pillow.

Dick shook his head. He was in a suit and tie, a nice suit and tie, but Jason and the scowling kid were both in their uniforms. Odd.

"We're not sure. You appeared in the middle of downtown Gotham," Dick said, and he sounded soothing. Kind of soft. Nothing at all like the tightly wound coils of stress Wally's Dick, the younger one, had sounded like for months.

"It was like a bomb blast. You took out parts of buildings. It's luck that no one was hurt, that there was no collateral damage," the kid said at once. Wally found himself laughing at the tone of accusation without meaning to. It was just funny. Really funny. He was the collateral damage.

Wally lifted one jelly filled arm and dropped it over his eyes. "Jason, you're the one that showed up in our world, right? You're the one that helped me find Dick when he vanished and came here?"

"One and the same," Jason said from beyond the barrier of Wally's arm.

Another bubbling laugh made its way past Wally's lips. They were kind of numb.

"So, I somehow got ran myself into your world? Wow, déjà vu. Artemis is going to kill me."


	2. Chapter 2

The problem, Dick decided, was that he had no idea what to do. He didn't. Not even a little bit. Before, when Bruce was out in space and the other members of the League were occupied trying to take care of the big world issues, Dick knew what to do. He understood what his job was. Stop the Reach, protect Kaldur and Artemis' cover, get Jaime off Mode for good, and keep the world safe. It was a lot to dump on a very small plate, but it was doable. He was in charge; Kaldur and Bruce were counting on him.

Now though, now there was nothing. No undercover missions to stay up at night worrying about, no father figures on trial out in space, no possible apocalyptic future to avert. Now…now Wally was dead and Dick didn't know what to do.

The walk was supposed to help give Dick clarity, help put things back into perspective, but the streets of Blüdhaven weren't helping with that today. Yesterday was the Fourth of July and the fireworks in the continental United States had been matched and than exceeded by some of the displays around the world. Everyone was happy they were alive and with no civilian casualties nothing was dampening the excitement people felt. As far as the world was concerned, the Justice League saved the day and that was the end of things.

He had promised Artemis that he'd go and see Wally's parents soon. They were planning to have the funeral on Friday, and it only seemed right that Dick talk to them beforehand. He was the one that dragged Wally and Artemis back into the game, he was the one that ruined Wally's chances of graduating Stanford and getting a job in Star Labs, like he's been talking about for years. He was the reason the Wests didn't have their son any more.

It was Jason and Tula all over again.

Dick turned the corner and closed his hand more tightly around the key in his pocket. He hadn't actually been expecting anyone to be waiting for him on the fire escape steps, not this time. It wasn't like Babs didn't have other things to do, and Tim wasn't going to pop in to have a heart to heart when he was still glued at the hip to Cassie, but the sight of those deserted steps felt like a final straw. Like the weight that would finally break his back.

He couldn't go into that apartment now. Not right now.

So, Dick turned back around and made for the closest zata tub in the vicinity. A small, secret part of Dick hated zata tubes. For that brief instant between one location and the next, that gray matter of a space, it felt like falling. Like dropping from a trapeze without a net to break the fall. It wasn't something he'd ever told Bruce, or Alfred, and definitely not something Dick would share with Tim when Tim still looked awed to be on the team half the time. It was the sort of thing one shared with a friend, a best friend. It was the sort of thing Dick used to talk with Wally about.

Central City was about as different from Gotham as it was possible to get. Gotham and Blüdhaven were similar, like siblings, one just a little bit more brutal then the other. If he was going to stick with the sibling analogy, Central City and Metropolis had to be twins. They didn't look anything alike, but they felt similar, felt kind in a way Gotham and Blüdhaven probably never would. When Dick stepped out of the zata tube disguised as a phone booth, he stepped out into an ally devoid of litter. The sidewalk was a little messy, but it was the mess of calibration. There were little bits of confetti all over the ground, so that pops of color caught his eyes while Dick walked. There were cardboard shells from fireworks that must have been lit the other day, and small toys to make noise that Dick was willing to bet the city gave out to the kids. This was probably the street Central City had its Fourth of July, We-Weren't-Invaded-By-Aliens parade on.

The Wests lived on a nice, quiet street corner not too far from downtown. It was one of the things that Wally liked about living at home, back when he was still an active member of the team; he was always right next to the action. Admittedly, most things where right next to the action for him, but Wally was never one to overlook a conventions.

The West's house was a nice building with two floors and a red roof and white walls. A porch wrapped around most of the first floor, and Dick remembered how much Wally liked to sit out on the porch when it was hot. Wally burnt easily, and Dick used to laugh at the thick globs of sunscreen he'd coat his nose with. Wally told Dick that he wanted to move in with Artemis while they sat on that porch.

There was activity inside the house, voices murmuring from behind the closed doors and suddenly Dick wanted to turn back around and leave. He didn't want to be alone, but he didn't want to bring his sadness here either. The decision was made for him however when the door was thrown open. Artemis stood there, one hand still on the doorknob, the other gesturing for Dick to come forward. She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Saw you coming from the living room window. Come in," she said.

Mrs. West was in the kitchen, only the edge of her shoulder visible from the front room. Mr. West lingered by the couch. He smiled when he saw Dick as well, and Dick did all he could to return the gesture.

"It's good to see you, Richard. I'm sure Mary will be happy to see you as well," Mr. West said. He crossed the room in three long steps and pulled Dick into a tight hug. Rudolf West had never been as emotionally reserved as Bruce, but Dick could still count the amount of times he'd been hugged by Wally's father on one hand. Mr. West was always quick with a joke and quick with a friendly word, but this was different. This was a hug that pulled Dick in close, like Mr. West was making sure no one else was going to vanish while he was around.

Artemis shrugged when Dick caught her eye over Mr. West's shoulder.

"Really, Aunt Mary, I can take care of this. You sit down, take it easy. It's what I'm here for," said a high, fast voice from the kitchen.

"Bart's here?"

Mr. West nodded, pulling away from Dick. "The boy's been a bit…upset. Mary thought it would be a good idea to have him over."

Upset. Not surprising at all. Before anything else could be said, Mrs. West entered the room, Bart hot on her heels. He had two steaming mugs in his hand and Dick could smell the aroma of roasted coffee beans from where he stood by the couch. Bart smiled wide when he saw the addition to the room. He passed one mug to Artemis and the other to Mr. West before walking at a very normal speed to wave at Dick.

Kid could win an Oscar for the performances he put on.

"Hi. What are you doing here? Never mind, I'm glad you're here, haven't seen you in a while, you don't come around the tower anymore, and Jaime thinks you quit but Tim got mad at him for saying that—" Bart began. His voice sped up the longer he spoke, so that by the time Artemis set her free hand down on his shoulder all of Bart's words had blurred into one another. If not for the practice Dick had listening to Wally, he might not have gotten most of the greeting.

"Glad to see you too, Bart. We can talk about work a little later, if you want," said Dick. He smiled, and this time it wasn't forced. He liked Bart. The kid was sweet, seemed to think Berry and Wally walked on water.

"Are you hungry? We just finished putting what's left of dinner away. I made a little too much," Mrs. West said. She leaned against Mr. West and looked down briefly, blinking her eyes to force back the moisture building at the corners. There was no need to mention why there were leftovers; Bart didn't eat as much as Wally.

"I'm fine, thank you. I just wanted to come and …and say hi." Which sounded ridiculous, empty and annoying. Say hi, after their son died? That was the last thing Dick wanted to say, but he couldn't bring himself to use the words 'my condolences' just yet.

"I'll get you coffee too," Bart said, and he dashed back into the kitchen. Still at a perfectly normal, average speed.

Artemis caught his eye. She moved closer to Dick as sounds of a cabinets opening and closing from the kitchen drifted into the living room. "Bart hasn't used his speed outside of a mission since the Arctic."

That was another thing he'd have to take care of then. If Bart wasn't using his powers now, when he'd thrown caution to the winds and raced around the world in his civvies just to get Belgian chocolate for Jaime after he came off Mode, there had to be a reason. If it was a Wally related reason, and Dick was fairly certain it was, he might call up Dinah. She'd be better equipped to help with something like this.

"Here ya go. I put in sugar, is that ok? And milk. It looked like it needed milk. Do you like milk?" Bart asked, trotting back into the room with another coffee mug held aloft.

Dick took it with a nod. He sipped the drink, noting the cloying sweetness and the over abundance of milk. He took his coffee black. "Tastes great."

Bart beamed again. Definitely had to talk to Dinah.

Mr. West flipped on the television while Mrs. West gestured for everyone to sit down. This was good, this Dick could deal with. He didn't have to do anything other than be here and that was enough for everyone right now. Bart hesitated for a moment before Artemis pulled him down onto the love seat beside her, while the Wests got comfortable on the couch. Dick chose to sit on the floor, back pressed against the side of the love seat and Artemis' leg.

G. Gordon Godfrey's smug face filled the screen, mid rant. "And personally, I feel like this has been a wake-up call to this nation and the world. Perhaps it's time to really, truly think about getting rid of the heroes. After all, who put us on the Reach's radar? It wasn't you and it certainly wasn't me, ladies and gentlemen."

Mr. West muttered something derisive under his breath and flipped the channel until they found a rerun of celebrity hockey.

Friday was bright and beautiful, exactly the sort of day Wally would have loved. Everyone showed up, some more visible then others. Clark and his "cousin" Conner Kent sat beside Megan Morse, both posing as friends of Wally's from high school. Bruce Wayne and both his adoptive sons were in attendance, as well as Barbara Gordon. Artemis and her mother sat in the front of the church for the service, right beside Wally's parents. Iris and Berry sat on the end of the same row. The Garrick and Bart were there as well, as well as distant cousins and friends from Stanford.

Those members of the team that had no logical or safe cover for being in attendance lingered around the church and later the cemetery, making sure that nothing disturbed the ceremony. If they had gathered for anything other than the burial of a team mate it might have been a nice day, having every one there without the prospect of a fight about to break out.

At the end of the service people hugged. The spoke through tears about how kind Wally was, about how much potential he had and how he was sure to be in a better place. It was all heartfelt, but it made Dick want to climb up somewhere high and stay there until the world made sense again. Not for the first time he wondered how things would have turned out if Jason, the older Jason, the one from the other world, had been able to stay. Would things have been different now? Would he have been willing to step up when Kaldur went under cover? Would he have been able to keep Tula and Dick's younger brother alive? Would he have been able to help Wally?

Eventually people left. Bruce lingered, waited to hear that Dick would be alright and was okay with him leaving. Tim and Barbara went with Bruce, but neither looked pleased to be going. It was just too soon. Dick couldn't talk to them about this, not yet.

Bart left on his own, but at the same sedated, human pace that set alarm bell off in the back of Dick's head. That needed to be taken care of. When he went home Dick would call Dinah. She was probably around the vicinity, actually, but now wasn't the time. She deserved a few hours to mourn too.

Artemis hadn't moved from the grave yet. It looked remarkably similar to the stone in Gotham Cemetery that used to have her name on it. The similarity was unsettling, but it wasn't Dick's place to make any comments. He came to stand beside her, feeling the sun warm his back through the black fabric of his jacket.

"We had so many options," Artemis said at last. "So many. In Paris, he talked about getting back into the business. We were going to sit down and really think about it. Figure out how long we wanted to stay involved."

"He never said anything to me about it," Dick admitted.

Artemis smiled, but didn't look away from the grave. "It's the same thing he was worried about happening with me. That itch just got under his skin, you know? He felt that rush again, and remembered all the reasons he loved the game in the first place."

Sometimes, Dick didn't think there was much of anything to love about this life. Not when it brought so much death along for the ride. But, there wasn't much else he was good for at this point. He was smart, he could go back to college full time instead of just taking the online classes like he was doing now. Wally used to tease Dick about all the fun he could have if he moved out to Palo Alto, but neither of them had ever taken the idea seriously.

"There's nothing down there. This grave is empty."

Dick looked up and over, found Artemis looking back at him with the sort of steely eyed determination that Wally used to wax poetic about. It was the same look she'd given Dick when he told her about the undercover mission.

"There was no body, Dick. Nothing."

He nodded slowly, unsure what else to do.

"What if Wally isn't dead?"

"Artemis—"

"No, think about it first. Remember Jason? The older one? The dimension hopping one? Well, how did he do it? A flash of light, right? What if that's what happened to Wally? What if he's still out there somewhere?" She reached out and curled her fingers around Dick's upper arms. Artemis didn't squeeze, but she didn't need to. She had his full attention anyway.

"We've tried to get back to that Jason's world. It didn't work again. Whatever we did that one time never worked right after Bruce and I got back. I studied it for years, I still don't know why it's not working," Dick said. This was dangerous. It was hope he couldn't afford to entertain, not if he wasn't sure. And it would be cruel to let Artemis think anything different.

She shook her head so that her long hair whipped back and forth. "I know that, but it's not the point. Look at how many weird things have happened in the last five years? Did we think time travel was a possibility until Bart showed up? I've thought about this, Dick, I have."

"Artemis." It was difficult to get the words out. They left craters of inadequacies in Dick's chest, left his insides burning. "There's no guaranty that what your suggesting is true. None. I don't know where we'd even start looking into this."

"I know all of that. It's why I didn't bring this up with anyone but you. Please. It's a long shot, a really, ridiculously long shot, but it's still a shot."

And that was the truth of the matter, wasn't it? If there was even a hint of a possibility that Wally was out there somewhere, waiting for someone to save him, then Dick knew what he had to do.

His head drooped onto Artemis' shoulder. She stepped closer, threw her arms around Dick and clung to him. Her body was shaking, and maybe his was too, but they wouldn't talk about the tears later. It was just something they had to do now, just a formality to get out of the way. One moment to mourn, to fall to pieces there in front of Wally because he wouldn't mind, and then that was it.

They had work to do tomorrow. They had a friend to save.


	3. Chapter 3

Some days it was difficult to look up at the sky and see the sun. Naturally, the sun was nice and it was bright, plants grew because it was up there doing its thing. The world was living and bright and that was all because of the sun, so the sun was good. The sun was great. Perfect, awesome even. Good job, sun.

It was just…really bright sometimes. There was no sun back in Bart's time. Obviously it was up there somewhere, but with all the pollution the Reach pumped into the air no one had seen it in the last fifty years. Well before Bart was born. It was one of the most disorienting things about being in the past, seeing the sun. It even burnt him after being in the Arctic. Grandpa Barry explained it. Apparently, the sun reflected off of the snow and made the rays stronger. Both of Bart's cheeks peeled from the burn for the next three days.  
Wally died and Bart got a sun burn.

Crash. As in, Moded. Totally Moded and bad and Bart wished he'd been the one to disappear instead of Wally. He wished it harder than he'd wished anything ever before, except the times he'd wished his mother never got pulled out of line during inspection. But that was different, Bart would have taken her place as well if he'd gotten the chance.

He kept not dying when he should.

The funeral was nice. It was the first time Bart ever went to one. When Artemis "died" and went undercover there had been a funeral as well, but it was small and only for her family and Wally. The other members of the team paid their respects to her hologram down in the grotto. The whole concept of a funeral was kind of weird, actually. They didn't have funerals back where Bart came from. What would be the point? Most of the time there wasn't a body left to bury anyway. The Bugs—the Reach—would pull the week and the old out of the groups and no one ever saw them again. If someone got in trouble and disappeared that prisoner's collars would be hung up on the spokes in the middle of the barracks and left there as an example. Even if someone had wanted to, it would be suicidal to take one of the collars and try to burry in the way the Wests buried the empty casket for Wally.

Bart wandered the streets of Keystone City. The Garricks were great, took Bart in right off the bat before anyone could even ask them about it. Grandpa Barry introduced them to Bart, they asked if he had a place to stay, and then they were talking about spare rooms and three square meals a day, school and television. A little overwhelming, intimidating, too much all at once, wow. It was totally crash though. They were nice. Mom would have liked them.

Mom wasn't born yet. She was a year younger than Dad and Aunt Dawn, so Bart had another two years or so before she was even a thing. An idea. A warm body.

Keystone was nice. It was crash, getting to see what the world looked like before the Bugs ruined everything. Before the Bug were even called the Bugs. They hadn't been on Earth long enough this time to pick up the nick name. It was great. But, the point was, Keystone was nice, the Garricks were, nice, everything was nice now, the world wasn't ending, and Bart wondered if he was crazy.

He might be. Others had said as much, both in his time and now in the past. Present? Current-time-he-inhabited. They were probably right. Bart was probably crazy. And not crazy like a fox (Garfield used the expression a lot. Bart had to look it up). It wasn't rational to feel upset that the clear and present danger was gone, but that was how Bart felt. Part of him was absolutely convinced that he was going to wake up back in the lean-to he and his mother shared with Uncle Nathaniel, inhibitor collar back on and Bugs back in charge. It actually felt like a nasty trick, waking up in a bed that had a mattress.

Wally was never supposed to die. Dad used to tell Bart stories, back before he died, about how the Flash taught him how to run. There was this one move, where he and Bart would race around in circles and the combined force of their speed would stir up a mini tornado, that Dad used to say the Flash taught him. For years, Bart thought Dad meant Grandpa Barry. He never realized that Wally was the Flash, right up until the Reach killed him.

Wally was never going to be the Flash now.

Bart traded one death for another. How was he supposed to work with Artemis, how was he supposed to look the Wests in the eye, knowing that if he hadn't interfered with things Wally would have lived years longer? Heck, Grandpa Barry would probably hate him if Bart ever explained things, ever revealed how much he'd altered. Wally and Jaime were the only ones he told the whole truth to and now Wally was dead and Jaime hadn't spoken to him since the Arctic.

There was a park across the street from Bart. It was his favorite park in Keystone. There were trees taller than any back home, with fields, play structures for the younger kids and sand boxes to build castles in. Bart and Jamie build one once, sometime after a mission and before the Reach put Jamie on mode. It was fun, but not something Bart could do during the day. People looked at him funny if he sat down in the sand box and started building. It wasn't like he could tell them, "No, it's totally crash. I'm from an apocalyptic future and we don't build sand castles there. I'm reliving my childhood."

So Bart walked excruciatingly slowly past the sand box and watched as a little girl piled sand high between her knees as the foundation for her castle. Her mother, or aunt, or nanny—Bart had no idea who people let their kids hang out with in this time, because no one left their child alone back home unless they trusted the person watching them to fight off the Bugs if they had to, kids were experiment ingredients—was sitting on a bench facing the little girl, but her attention as elsewhere. A crowd had formed behind her and the play area. A circular seating aria was set just beyond the grass sectioning off the jungle gym and the sandbox. Benches lined the cement walkway, so that parents could sit right in the middle of the park and have a clear view of their kids whether they were playing in the structure or running on the field.

Bart could hear a voice, raised high, orating from the center of the circle. He cocked his head to the side and trudged closer to the crowd. There were at least fifty people standing beside one of the picnic benches right in the middle of the cement. They didn't all look like parents either, because one of them was holding a camera that looked professional grade. Everyone nodded, hummed, and looked much too serious for a bunch of people standing around a park. Bart slipped between a young woman clutching her purse close while she frowned and an older man shaking his head.

He recognized the voice in the center of the circle.

G. Gordon Godfrey held his microphone at the perfect distance to catch his anger, but none of the spittle that escaped when he made a particularly enthusiastic point. He was standing in front of the picnic bench, and it was hard to see him because he wasn't actually tall enough to see over the heads over the onlookers. Bart weaseled his way closer, morbid curiosity drawing him in. No one that he knew of liked G. Gordon Godfrey, but most of the people that Bart knew were involved in the superhero business in one way or another. The people gathered here in the park were evidence enough that someone out there cared what Godfrey had to say.

Bart was a bit conflicted about letting any guy with a suit and tie get on television. Free speech wasn't so much a thing back home, but Garfield liked to use it as his right any time Conner told him to be quiet.

"I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to look around you. Do you see what we could have lost? Little children, families. We might never have had the chance to come here to the park in peace and allow our boys and girls to play. Without fear of aliens and maniacs with grudges against the so called 'heroes' running around in masks," Godfrey said. His voice had an odd, drawling quality to it that commanded attention. Bart was pretty sure if he focused on anything other then what Godfrey was saying he would miss something, because the words all kind of trilled together.

"And why do they need masks, good people? Why? So that when the bad guys come calling we can't hold them accountable. So that we can't send them the check for the damages."

"That's totally not true. There are plenty of heroes who fix what they break, and what are they supposed to do? Let the bad guys break the city?" The protest was out before Bart really thought about what he was doing. That happened a lot, now that he was living without the collar. With noting inhibiting his speed, Bart's body tended to run off and do whatever it wanted before his brain had time to catch up. Wally said it was because he'd trained himself to slow his thinking down to match the speed his collar allowed Bart to move at.

Godfrey paused, one arm raised and fisted, like a call to battle. For a moment his eyes darted around the onlookers, until they finally dropped and found Bart's face among the crowd. A smile that reminded Bart far too much of the Ambassador graced Godfrey's lips and he allowed the arm to lower back down to his side. People shifted, so that Bart was less hidden, more visible a target. He didn't like it, but there was nothing any of these people could do to him that Bart didn't have the power to run from.

Also, this was the past. They crashed the Mode. There was no reason to need to run from a bunch of people in a park.

"Ah, yeas. See, ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what I'm talking about. How old are you, son?" Godfrey asked, stepping forward.

Bart felt his shoulders tense. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Godfrey's smile grew patronizing. He glanced up first at the crowd and then over towards the camera, one eye brow lifted as if to say, "Children. So defensive, but I'm very patient with them."

"I ask, because I wonder if you ever knew a time without heroes. Without the Justice League?"

Bart almost laughed, but then he didn't because that would have looked bad. He wanted to be taken seriously. Also, there was a camera, and that meant this might be on television, and he really should have thought about that before drawing attention to himself. Nightwing would be mad. Except, Nightwing kind of quit for the time being so he couldn't really yell at Bart for this. Right? Right.

"That isn't the point. The point is, heroes keep us safe and the bad guys would be there with or without them so we might as well have people who'll fight them, and what were civilians going to do against aliens if there weren't heroes to defend the planet?" Bart demanded, all in one long rush. But slowly, he rushed slowly. He enunciated every word as clear as he could to be sure they didn't mash together like they tended to do when he was mad. He wasn't mad. He just didn't like G. Gordon Godfrey.

Godfrey, for his part, laughed. Chuckled, actually. He walked all the way across the space to Bart and put one of his hands on Bart's shoulder, the one not holding the microphone. Bart shrugged his shoulder, but the hand remained.

"Calm yourself down, son. I'm impressed with your passion, you make your case well," Godfrey said, and the people around them chuckled as well. They looked like Godfrey was telling a joke, or being nice to Bart when really he was being condescending and Bart wanted to hit him. Also, the hand needed to get off his shoulder right now.

"It's always promising to find a young person interested in the issues of the day, even if we don't happen to see—"Godfrey paused and lifted an eye brown to the onlookers and the camera. "—Eye to eye. What's your name son?"

Bart wasn't going to tell him. Godfrey didn't need to know and was stupid and totally not crash anyway. He could feel his brows dropping, could feel his face setting into a stubborn frown, and then… All that tension seemed to release. What was the point? It was just a name. A name couldn't hurt anything. And Bart felt a little sleepy, if he was being totally honest with himself. A little run down. It wasn't worth fighting with Godfrey, because Godfrey didn't know what he was talking about. Godfrey was an innocent bystander with a big head and a lot of opinions and that was it.

"Bart Allen."

"Well, Bart, I'd like you to promise me something," Godfrey said, leaning in close to stage whisper loud enough for everyone to hear.

Bart blinked. His head was starting to hurt. "What?"

"Promise me you'll go home and really think about this. Think about whether 'heroes' are keeping us safe, or if you like them because they can fly. Will you promise me that?"

Godfrey had weird eyes. They were a funny color. Not one Bart could name, but as he looked at them his head hurt just a little more and sleep. He needed sleep. Hadn't been sleeping well since Wally, and Bart didn't sleep much most nights. It was habit, back home, one that kept him alive, but after being in the past Bart got spoiled. He was used to four hours a night.

"I don't think I like them because they can fly. Superboy can't fly, I don't think," Bart muttered. This was kind of important. Conner got grumpy when people brought up the no-flying thing, but Bart thought Conner was crash. And Conner couldn't fly, so Godfrey was wrong.

Something almost imperceptible shifted in G. Gordon Godfrey's face. It was a flash, there and gone so fast Bart almost missed it, and Bart was fast. Godfrey smiled wider, gave his hand on Bart's shoulder a tight squeeze—he was stronger than he looked—and straightened up. He still didn't move the hand. Bart couldn't remember exactly why that bothered him, just that it did.

"What are you doing?"

Bart startled, hoped right into the man to his right, but Godfrey's hand came with him. Jamie pushed his way through the group of onlookers behind Godfrey. One woman muttered something disgruntled under her breath and folded her arms tightly over her chest to glare at the back of Jamie's head. It was warm enough to not need a sweater, but Jamie had one on anyway, probably to hide the bulge of the scarab on his spine.

Godfrey turned to face Jamie and finally his hand dropped away from Bart's shoulder.

"Hi hermano," Bart said. It lacked some of its usual enthusiasm, but that wasn't because he wasn't excited to see Jamie. Because he totally was. Jamie was crash. It was just the head ache. And the fact that Bart was really, really tired.

Jamie glared daggers at Godfrey, who looked back at him with slightly narrowed eyes. Probably mad his recording was being interrupted. Without breaking his stare down, Jamie reached out and caught Bart's shoulders. He pushed, turned Bart around and marched him out of the circle of onlookers.

"No need for such hostilities," Godfrey said in passing, as Bart tilted his head back to look at Jamie.

"No tango tiempo para usted. Come on, let's go," Jaime added, turning his attention back to Bart. He did not return the smile Bart sent his way.

Jamie didn't release Bart until they were out of the park and well away from G. Gordon Godfrey. It was tense. More than it had to be, because Bart wasn't going to say anything until Jamie said something because Jamie hadn't said anything to him in almost five days now and Wally died. Who decided not to talk after someone died? Bart was fine, totally fine—except for the part where he might be crazy—but that didn't mean he wouldn't have enjoyed talking to Jamie. Why as Jamie even here? El Paso was way far away from Keystone City. It would have been easier to just call, instead of stalking Bart at parks to glare at TV show hosts.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" Jamie asked at last. He released Bart's shoulder as well, but Bart was less happy about it this time then he had been when Godfrey was the one touching him.

"I didn't hear it ring?"

Jaime rolled his eyes. Almost at once his gaze last focus and turned inward, the way it did every now and again. Bart wanted to ask about it once, but felt like that would be too personal a question, so he didn't.

His head hurt. He felt kind of sick, actually.

"Are you all right, ese? You don't look so good." That was the thing about Jaime that Bart really liked. Whenever anyone was feeling bad, or got hurt, or was sick Jaime was right there, ready to step up. It was the main reason Bart stopped thinking about what he would have to do to kill Blue Beatle if he went on Mode, and started thinking about what he could do to keep Jamie safe from the Reach.

Heroes weren't allowed to kill people in this time anyway, which was nice because Bart had never killed anyone before and he'd been willing to if it meant saving the world, but he was really happy Jamie was okay.

"I'm going to throw up," Bart announced, right before he darted to a trash can set outside a conventions store and vomited into it.

He could hear Jaime walking up behind him, but the hand that settled to rub small circles into his back was still surprising. Nice. So much about this time was nice and Bart just didn't get it.

"Mr. Garrick called me. That's why I'm here, he and Mrs. Garrick were worried when they couldn't get a hold of you. They thought you might be with me," Jamie said, still rubbing.

Once he was sure no more vomit would be coming up today, Bart straightened. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, ignored the slight grimace Jamie gave at the action and stepped away from the hand on his back.

"You haven't talked to me in almost a week. Why would I be hanging out with you?" There wasn't even a tiny bit of resentment in that. Not even a drop. It was just as question, plain and simple. Bart wasn't going to get fussy about this. He was totally calm. One hundred percent calm.

Jamie winced like he'd been yelled at. He rubbed at the back of his neck and looked down at his feet like they were the most interesting thing in the world. They weren't Bart would know, he's spent a lot of time finding things in the past interesting and feet where one thing that staid the same no matter what time a person was from.

"I figured you wouldn't want to talk to me," Jamie muttered. He glanced at Bart, looked down and then glanced back up with a little twitch. Bart imagined Jamie would react like that to someone telling him not to slouch.

"Why wouldn't I want to talk to you? Can we go home? I don't feel good."

At once Jamie nodded. He swept one arm out, herding Bart down the sidewalk the way Bart saw mothers do with their kids. It annoyed him. He wasn't a kid, he didn't need to be herded. But his knees were acting funny because of his head and if Jamie wanted to pretend like they were best friends again, then fine. Were they ever best friends? Probably? Bart would call it best-friendship-when-saving-world, but he hadn't really had that much experience with friendship so maybe he was wrong.

"You're really pale. What did Godfrey do that got you so upset?"

Bart's head tilted to the left, so that he could squint at Jamie walking to his right. "What do you mean? That guy didn't do anything."

Jaime glanced down again, before looking over at Bart. "You were pale as a ghost when you were talking to him. You look a little better now, but still not good. Are you just sick, or was it something he said?" Jamie's face turned hard. "If he said something to upset you, you can tell me. I'll take care of it."

Bart was going to say he was fine, he was going to say Godfrey didn't do anything, but then Jamie was glaring over his shoulder out of the corner of his eye and hissing, "No. We will not use lethal force. We've been over this."

"You are a very strange person, hermano," he said instead.

Jamie smiled, shrugged, his fingers brushed against Bart's side. "Why wouldn't I want to talk to you?" Bart asked, instead of throwing up again. He might still throw up again, but a distraction would be nice.

Jamie was silent so long that Bart figured he'd throw up just to break the tension. "It's my fault. That last machine in the Arctic. It's my fault for not finding that one in time."

"Not true. Totally not true."

Bart stumbled. Jamie's arm snapped tight, pulling him in against Jamie's side to prevent a fall, but Bart didn't notice. His head was splitting, pounding. It hurt. It hurt really bad and he was about to get sick again on Jamie's shoes, but at least then they would be more interesting than before.

"Bart, something is wrong with you. I'm taking you to M'gann," Jamie said, but he sounded really far away. Not back-in-the-future kind of far away, but still pretty far. Mondo far. Super far. Bart didn't know enough retro slang to describe how far away Jamie sounded.

He knew they were flying, because his stomach did a weird swoop that had noting to do with nausea, but he wasn't exactly sure when that happened. Bart opened his eyes to see blue armor inches from his nose and for the first time that didn't bother him.


	4. Chapter 4

People were interesting. Weird, but definitely interesting. There was a psychology class that Artemis convinced him to take one semester that illustrated what Wally meant perfectly. The professor had everyone in the class read an experiment, one that showed how willing people were to forget all about their morals if someone authoritative told them what to do. It made Wally wonder how many of the henchmen he'd fought over the years were just too weak-willed to say no when they were given their orders. That class opened a door for Wally, quipped his interest in other behavioral studies. Artemis spent more of the semester trying not to look too smug that her pick for elective class was such a hit.

Most of the studies Wally read were interesting, some of them were enlightening (but not in a "The Light" kind of way), but some of them were downright depressing. People were just so malleable, so changeable. That was what Wally told himself every time he wanted to punch Damian Wayne in his smug little face. Damian might have been raised in the same environment as Dick and Tim, but he was nothing at all like either of them.

Mostly because Damien was a…dick. Ha! Yeah, only it wasn't all that funny, because the Dick Grayson of this world was more relaxed and smiling and happy then the Dick Grayson of Wally's world, and that was just weird. Every time this new version of Dick smiled or made a joke it did nothing but remind Wally of how long it had been since his Dick did the same. And that made Wally start to think about how stressful the high stakes games Dick plaid as leader of the team had to be. And that made Wally start to question his decision to retire, because what kind of a friend was he to have left Dick in that kind of a situation?

The first night was the worst. Alfred and Jason stood on either side of Wally as he lied there on the medical table in the middle of the cave, which was dank and kind of cold but not as cold as the Arctic had been. Dick walked off out of sight and then there was suddenly Batman looming over Wally. Wally may have squeaked, in a completely manly and brave way. And then Batman smiled, wide and with teeth.

"I think this world is broken. Batman just smiled," Wally said, reaching out to grab the leather jacket Jason wore. He tried to pull himself further away from the laughing, happy Batman but Jason laughed too.

"Naw. We have a new sheriff in town, that's all," Jason said, patting Wally on the shoulder.

"Wha—" and then Batman pulled his cowl down and Dick winked.

"Why are you in the suit?"

Dick's smile turned tighter around the edges, more like the smiles that Dick from back home started to give. Alfred looked politely away and Jason said nothing but his expression was hard. Sad even. It was strange, watching this older version of Jason making the same sort of looks that the younger one used to. It was messing with Wally's head.

"My father died. Grayson is a pretender wearing his cloths until I'm ready to take the cowl," the boy that, at that point, was only known to Wally as not-Tim said from over near the computers. He was perched on the large swiveling chair like a black bird, glaring out from under his hood.

"Batman had a kid?"

The boy's eyes narrowed behind his mast.

"That's Damian. He's a bright, shining ray of sunshine and daisies," Jason chirped.

Wally thought about replying, but he couldn't find the words. How was he supposed to respond to learning that Bruce Wayne had a kid? That Bruce was dead? That Dick became the one thing that he'd never wanted to be; The Batman.

Dick smiled again, still with that tight edge to it. He pulled the cowl back up and nodded his head to Jason. With another firm pat that ended up with Wally flat on his back, Jason moved around the bed to stand beside Dick…Batman. It was weird.

"Alfred, I think he's going to need some food if Wally ran all the way from his dimension to this one. We'll be back by morning. Damian, stay here and keep an eye on Wally," Dick said, and it was freaky to hear that chipper voice coming from beneath the cowl.

The boy, Damian, jumped to his feet, fists clenched. "I am not a baby sitter!" he said angrily.

"No, but you're going to stay home and watch over the ally in our house like I told you to," Dick replied. Something in his tone made Wally tense. It wasn't a voice he'd ever heard Dick use before.

Damian stomped his way across the cave and stood toe to toe with Dick, scowling up into the face that Gotham criminals had nightmares about. "You are not my father, Grayson. I do not take orders from you."

"As long as you're in that outfit you do," Dick said just as firmly. And then he turned and walked away. He dismissed Damian and the cloying anger radiating off of the boy like a tangible thing.

Jason caught Wally's eyes and lifted his brows in a significant gesture towards Damian. Wally didn't get the chance to examine the expression for long before Jason pulled his red hood back on. Wally watched as they climbed into the batmobile and drove away.

Damian cursed, kicked the leg of Wally's hospital bed and stomped back over to his chair.

Wally remembered Alfred helping him upstairs, he remembered Damian walking behind them and scowling so pointedly it rose the hair on the back of his neck. Wally remembered the feel of strong old hands guiding him down onto soft sheets. He remembered how badly he wanted out of the sweat stained suit, and he remembered thinking how annoyed Artemis was going to be in the morning if he went to bed with his shoes still on.

Something smelt terrific. Awesome. Like his favorite food, which was anything staying still enough to wolf down and Wally was fast, so there wasn't much he wouldn't eat. He was starving. Holly crap. When was the last time he ate? The fridge was mostly empty, because what the heck was the point of filling it with good food when he was going to eat it all by himself? No one liked Wally's cooking as much as Artemis anyway.

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty."

Something bounced off Wally's forehead and he opened his eyes to stare at sheets with a larger thread count with more zeros then his bank account. To be fare, that wasn't hard, but who was being fare? Jason lounged on a backwards chair beside the bad, a bag of pistachios still in their shell resting on his knees. Wally watched as he reached down, plucked up a nut and tossed it. This one hit almost the exact same spot on Wally's head as the last.

What ever expression Wally made had Jason laughing, leaning back in his chair and grinning with equal parts teasing and honest amusement. His smile turned crooked, his eyes crinkling at the corners so that his whole face seemed to open up with confidence.

It was the same look Wally used to see on another, younger face. The same look that he used to tease a Jason that barely reached his shoulders about, the same look he used to say would get the kid into trouble. It was weird seeing the expression on a face that, for Wally, didn't live long enough to get that old.

"You alright?" Jason asked. The smile was dying along the edges of his lips.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good," Wally replied, pushing himself upright. His arms shook. Definitely need to get some food soon.

"Anyone ever tell you you're a shit liar?"

That fact seemed debatable, considering Wally stood with his not-dead-girlfriend's mother over his-not-dead-girlfriend's empty grave and no one knew anything about the not being dead part for months, but this was different. This was creepy, actually. And relay unsettling, because he still remembered the way Dick cried at Jason's funeral.

"To each their own, but I got to get some food in me, buddy. I'm running on empty now."

As if to prove his point, Wally wobbled on his feet beside the bed and then dropped back down hard on the mattress. Jason looked unconvinced, but willing to let the subject drop for the time being. The other Jason never let anything drop when his curiosity was quipped.

"Get changed. I brought you some sweats and a shirt. Dick's not all that much taller than you, so they should fit fine." Jason pointed to a pile of folded cloths sitting unobtrusively at the end of the bed and then he walk out of the room. He left the pistachios on the chair.

Before even bothering to pull off the Kid Flash suit or put on the clean cloths, Wally shoved half the bag into his mouth, pausing long enough to peel the shells from the nuts but not long enough to taste anything on the way down. After the shaking calmed, he pulled off the suit (someone had removed his shoes which was all kinds of awkward because how did they know how to do that without taking off everything?) and pulled on the clean pants and shirt. Jason was right, they fit better than expected and were only a little long in the legs.

Jason and Damian were both waiting outside the door when Wally opened it. Jason at least looked satisfied now that Wally was upright and mobile, but Damian's upper lip curled back and he scoffed.

"You gave him Grayson's cloths? How typical." He stomped away before Wally got the chance to ask what was typical about wearing pants and a shirt, and maybe that was better because Wally was suddenly very acuity aware of why he didn't want kids.

Except for maybe Bart. Bart was house trained and family, and Artemis would be down with playing big sister-mentor figure for the kid, because he was cute in an annoying, hyper kind of way.

Alfred had breakfast ready for them down in the dining room. Jason stopped to say good morning and exchange pleasantries, but Damian plopped down into his chair like a little lord demanding tribute and Wally considered lobbing a fork full of scrambled eggs at the kid. Just to see what he would do. No one that young should be that uptight. Jason and Alfred ignored the attitude, so Wally figured it wasn't anything new and paid more attention to the large plates of food.

Alfred must have been up all night, because there were muffins (blueberry and poppy-seed), there were pancakes, sausages, buttered English muffins, toast, hash browns, eggs (poached and scrambled), cut fruit, juice that looked fresh and the best smelling coffee in the word. Caffeine did very little for Wally, he metabolized it was too fast to get the kind of energy rush most people experienced, but Artemis was addicted. She was frugal in almost all things, except for coffee. Nothing but the best the grocery store had to offer would do, and always full beans that she ground herself with a little spice grinder at home. She was a master, and every cup of coffee Artemis made was the best coffee Wally ever tasted.

Alfred's was good, but Artemis' was better.

"No one could possibly eat this much food, Pennyworth," Damian said, one brow arched to gaze at the splendor before him.

"I believe Master West will prove you wrong," Alfred replied.

And Wally did. He let Jason and Damian help themselves, made sure there was enough set aside for Dick if and when he came down, and then Wally ate. He had five slices of bread, three of both types of muffins, a generous portion of eggs which he put on top of the pancakes and then rolled like a burrito to eat, two poached eggs and most of the cut fruit.

"That's repulsive," Damian declared once Wally came up for air.

Jason shrugged, but from the door way came, "That's how a speedster eats. They have high metabolisms in order to run that fast."

Dick's hair was rumpled, and there were bags under his eyes, but the smile he flashed in Wally's directions was strong and happy. He said good morning to Alfred and everyone seated at the table, poured himself a cup of coffee and flopped down into one of the vacant seats gracelessly. It happened to be the one next to Damian. The kid's eyes darted up to Dick's face, something moving behind them that Wally couldn't quite place, and then Damian glowered at his scrambled eggs.

"Patrol go well?" Wally asked at last, because the look on Damian's face was a little too close to the looks Bart gave Wally when he first showed up.

Dick nodded. He gulped down his coffee and waved the hand not holding his mug dismissively. "Yeah. Things always get a bit more energetic when the weather is bad, but it wasn't too bad. The important thing is; I think I figured out who to contact about getting you back home."

"Really? That's awesome!" And fast! Wally had only been here for a day. Talk about results.

"Who?" Damian barked.

Jason flicked a grape at him. Damian leaned to the side and the grape passed over his shoulder and bounced onto the floor.

Dick grinned wide and happy, and winked at Damian. The look earned him a raised brow from the kid and a pleased smile from Jason.

"You're going to reach out to the League?" Jason asked.

Dick nodded. "Yeah. They should have the tech to help. Between the Flash and Starfire, we'll find a way to get you home."

Damian gave a derisive snort and turned away from Dick. Wally watched him stab at his scrambled eggs with slight confusion. One second the kid looked like he was a forty year old man, the next he looked like a petulant child. There had to be a story behind the kid, more than just the bare bone facts that Wally had, for Damian to be so mercurial.

Jason gave a woop and toasted the air with his coffee mug. "Starfire? Good plan. Very good plan."

"Who's Starfire?"

"An airhead," Damian said at the same time Jason replied, "A warrior," and Dick chirped, "A friend."

Good. Informative. Cleared everything right up there.

"Who's the Flash here?" Wally asked, because that at least was something he might be able to get a clear answer about.

"You are," Jason said before slurping the dregs out of his coffee.

"Manners, Master Jason," Alfred said lightly before filling the mug up again.

Suddenly the food didn't look as appetizing anymore. Uncle Barry was the Flash and if he wasn't running in the red and yellow it was because he wasn't around to run anymore. It was a fear that used to keep Wally up at night, when he was younger and just found out that the cook guy dating his favorite aunt was also the amazing guy that kept his city safe.

"What happened to Barry Allen?" Wally asked his plate.

There was a moment of silence in the room. He didn't bother looking up to see what the others were doing. He could guess the condolence that would be on Dick's face, didn't know Damian well enough to know and didn't care, but Wally didn't want to look at Jason. What if, in light of this question, this bringing to the table those who were and were not alive in their respective world, Jason chose to ask the question he'd been hinting at earlier? Dick, the one from back home, told Wally about Jason's death in this world when their own Jason died. What the Joker did to the Jason sitting at the table right now was terrible, but Jason's death back in Wally's world was almost as bad.

"I'm not entirely sure. It happened back before we set up the League, back when everyone was wary about working together or giving up their privet identities," Dick said. Wally

glanced up at him, found the sympathy he'd expected in Dick's expression, and felt something in his stomach twist. "That was when I first met…well, I guess, you. It was the first time I ever worked together with the new Flash. But I didn't know who he was and he didn't know who I was."

"You know each other now?"

"Yeah. We formed a League here—Jason had the idea after being in your reality—and we've worked together a lot over the last few years." Dick said. He glanced at Jason, and there was pride there. Jason looked at Wally and rolled his eyes.

"Which was foolish. The likelihood of any one person in this joke of a League betraying the others is large," Damian snapped.

"It's a risk we're all aware of and a risk we're all willing to take. Friendships are important, and if we don't have those connections we've already lost the fight." Damian looked less then convinced by Dick's explanation, but he didn't argue the point further.

"In the mean time, Master Wally, you will stay with us," Alfred declared, and there was no arguing with that tone. Not that Wally would have, but he kind of got the feeling that an argument had been expected. Instead he shrugged, nodded, and took another sip of his coffee.

Now, hours later and considering joining Dick, Damian, and Jason on patrol, all Wally could do was remind himself that Damian was a kid and hopefully he would grow out of the attitude problem soon. And, if he didn't, Wally wasn't going to be in this world too much longer.


	5. Chapter 5

Artemis hated the cold. Really hated it, with the sort of personalized, fixated anger that normally only people deserved. She didn't even hate her father the way that she hated the cold, not even at the worst of their relationship. She knew, logically, that the cold had nothing to do with Wally being gone but whenever the cold crept into bed with her at night, when it settled in her bones when no one was looking, Artemis wished she could shoot cold full of arrows. Stuff it full of pointy sticks and run off to Paris because they'd been happy there.

The lesson was a hard one to learn, but Artemis already knew not to run from her problems. Her sixteen year old self certainly caused havoc trying to do just that. So, Paris was out of the question, but the Arctic was not. That was a problem she could face head on, the same way Wally used to face taking out the trash once she threatened him for letting in overflow. Artemis had worked too hard building a life in that little Palo Alto apartment, complete with dog, to sit back and accept things as they were. She should never have let anyone lead her into the bioship and away from Wally in the first place. That was a mistake, and not one she'd be making again.

All she had to do was find him.

Artemis crossed her legs and slumped in her chair. The flight to the arctic was long, but there wasn't any other way to get to the location of the disappearance. Part of Artemis wished she and Dick had made the trip alone, but an equally large part of Artemis was glad for M'gann's presence. Once, back when the team was still just made up of six kids with too much talent and time on their hands, M'gann said she'd always wanted a sister on Earth. In more ways than Artemis wanted to admit too, she'd felt the same. If anyone would be willing to help, to reserve judgment, it would be M'gann. The hesitation to divulge the details of this trip had nothing to do with trust.

M'gann had already given so much to the mission, lost so much of herself to the cause, Artemis was afraid to hold out that hope to her again. She knew how devastated M'gann had been when she thought Artemis was dead, remembered the look of horror on her face when Tula and Jason died. It didn't seem fare somehow to say anything before things were farther along, before Artemis had something other than bone deep certainty that Wally was out there and she'd find him, save him, and live happily ever don't-you-leave-me-after-this.

Still, it was good to have someone else on the ship to force Dick to socialize. Aside from late night video chats to go over the details of the case, Dick hadn't spoken to anyone in four days. Not even Tim, because Artemis sure as hell asked the kid. She was worried. In less than a year Dick watched his baby brother and a good friend die, concocted a plan that could have gotten them all killed, lead the team, fought off alien invaders, got cut off from his mentor and father, and lost his best friend. That was enough to drive anyone a little crazy. Hell, it was enough to have Artemis finishing off the bottle of whisky in the cabinet above the sink on her own.

Everyone needed time to grieve, but Dick was the same as Artemis. Dick needed to do something, needed to feel proactive and productive, in order to function. Artemis was going to find Wally, and she was going to ground Dick while she did it whether he appreciated it or not.

"We should be landing in five minutes. Not long now," M'gann said. There was hesitation in her voice. She wanted to ask, wanted to know more than the flimsy story Artemis gave her to get this trip. Closure. Artemis would get closure when Wally was home.

"Sorry we pulled you away from Conner," Artemis said, pointedly steering the conversation away from herself.

M'gann blushed, so that her cheeks turned an interesting shade of red-green, like Christmas with freckles. She looked down and scuffed her toe against the top step of the pilot's seat. "It-it's not like that. Conner and I are just friends. We're just trying to work things out as friends, you know?"

Dick laughed, but it was good-natured. Nothing like his infectious, and slightly creepy, giggle from years ago, but there was enough true happiness in the sound for Artemis to count it as real.

"You guys looked like you'd worked things out pretty well when you came back from Rimbor," he said, spinning his chair around to look up at M'gann.

She smiled, still looking a bit bashful, but mostly pleased with Dick's assessment. If there was one thing Artemis would admit, it was that Dick had Casanova beat for knowledge of relationship in's and out's. Hell, at thirteen he had Zatanna head over heels after their first meeting. Which was cute, because Dick did puppy love like a golden retriever, all doting and excited. He could spot a blooming crush from a mile away. Called the Tim and Cassie thing months ago, probably before either of them had even realized there was an attraction.

"We'll see. There's a lot we have to work out," said M'gann. She looked happy, content in a way that none of them had in almost a year. Dick was relaxed, draped forward in his seat and smiling. Artemis felt…good, calm, for the first time in so long she'd almost forgotten the feeling.

And then the bioship began to descend.

Instantly, Dick was straightening in his seat. The easy smile was gone from his face. Artemis knew he'd rather not be here, but he was and Dick was a god dammed professional. He'd get the job done. They all would.

Artemis checked her bow and quiver before pulling the hood of her parka up over her ears and standing. The bottom of the ship detached from the sides in a long rectangle, descending in a gentle arch to the ground. Air rushed in and instantly the cold was in her lungs. It burrowed there, made friends with the cold living in Artemis' bones and settled in.

Stupid cold.

Back straight and head high, Artemis lead the way off the ship. Dick followed closer behind, M'gann bringing up the rear and drifting in the air behind them both so that the ship could seal itself closed behind them. There was an indentation in the snow covered ground, a crater from where the Reach pod hit after it deactivated. The mark wasn't deep, might not have been noticeable if not for the fact that Artemis was looking for it. Nothing at all in line with the amount of trouble it was causing.

"I'll do a scan for any energy signals," Dick said firmly. It helped, a little, to hear how well he could fake it, made Artemis almost feel calm as well. Almost like the anger burning up her insides in a cold, cold agony wasn't there.

"I'm going to check the perimeter, see if there was anything we missed the first time we left here," she said.

M'gann hesitated form a moment, glancing between Dick standing at the edge of the crater and Artemis marching in the beginnings of a wide circle around the area. "I could go camouflage mode and fly up to see if anything is around," M'gann suggested.

Artemis grunted, but kept walking. She needed to dig her heals into the snow, needed to do this the old fashion way, but if M'gann wanted to be scout no one would stop her.

You don't want me to do that, do you?

It was soft, a brush of wind in her mind, and Artemis was so, so glad to find it there. One of the things she never expected to miss half as much as she had after retiring with Wally was the feel of M'gann linking their minds together. It was infinitely comforting to know that there wasno one there, on such a personal level, that was ready to communicate with Artemis.

Not really, no, she admitted.

In her memories this location was flat and barren. There hadn't been anything for as far as the eyes could see other than snow. Lots and lots of snow. The snow was still present, but now there were drifts taller than Artemis herself that had cropped up at some point in the last week. If there was anything out here, anything that the disheartened and devastated members returning from the Arctic missed last time, it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to find now.

There must have been a storm. Something big enough to kick up so much ice and snow. If they looked though the League's satellite images maybe she'd be able to catch the storm in action. Or, hell, maybe Google Earth updated recently and they managed to catch the incident.

Do you want to talk about it? I can link Dick too. I wasn't sure if you wanted this to be privet or not, M'gann continued. She was shoulder to shoulder with Artemis now, scanning their surroundings with enough focuses that anyone who didn't know her would assume M'gann was ignoring her companion.

It's alright. I'm not…not really looking for anything. I mean, I'm not expecting to find anything out here. I just had to check, Artemis admitted with a shrug. She tugged at the string of her bow with her free hand and considered the snow drift they were growing closer to.

Did you notice that the drifts form a circle?

Artemis stopped. "What? No. Can you show me?" she fumbled aloud, turning to look at M'gann.

A nod was all the warning she got before the ground dropped away from underneath Artemis' feet. While the touch of M'gann in her mid was always a welcome presence, the touch of M'gann's telekinesis on her body was not. It made the little hairs that ran along Artemis' arms stand on end and the tips of all her extremities tingle like pins and needles. Back in the beginning, when she first joined the team and M'gann used her power to move Artemis it nearly made her sick. Now it was a bearable but unpleasant necessity.

They rose high enough to see the span of a football field in any direction. It was colder up here then it had been down on the ground and Artemis wanted to drag whoever said heat rises up here and show them how wrong they were. The snow was kicked up in an uneven circle around the bioship and the crater. She should have seen it when they were up in the air, but Artemis hadn't been looking out the windows for a reason. A stupid reason, she now realized.

It looked like a shock radius. There definitely hadn't been any bombs going off up here, because the League would have picked up on that or Kaldur would have. Either way, Artemis would have been here the second she heard about it. One edge of the drifts rose higher than the other. Possibly, whatever disturbed the aria had hit one spot more powerfully than the other? She squinted, fingers squeezing around her bow hard enough that the leather of her gloves whined.

What's that? she asked, pointing to a dark blur near Dick and the bioship. They were too high up to be sure, but it looked rough. A rock maybe? One that was uncovered after the snow was displaced.

And then the shape moved.

It darted forward, around the bioship and straight for Dick's unprotected back.

"Look out!" Artemis screamed, arm darting over her back to pull an arrow free from the quiver. Not fast enough, too far away, wouldn't get to him in time, but still had to try.

Dick! echoed in her head and M'gann swiped her hand hard to the left. Snow underneath the charging figure's feet moved, but the figure itself continued its attack. Artemis released her arrow, knew it was too little too late, and the cold was spreading.

M'gann soared and she dragged Artemis through the air behind her. Dick turned just at the arrow struck the creature and bounced off. He still had the holographic computer screen pulled up from his sleeve cuff. The creature lunged and Artemis heard two voices scream.

Dick dove under the creature and rolled to his feet with both escrima sticks drawn and ready.

M'gann and Artemis touched down on either side of him. The creature stared back at them.

It looked like a dog, if a dog was crossed with a bear and a mountain side. Its legs were thick and armored with thick, scabbed skin. If the creature was meant to have fur, the fur was gone. It looked like fire had been dumped over the beast. Patches along its right flank and shoulder blade still appeared to be burning. Saliva ran in strands from its snout as the thing growled so low and so powerfully Artemis could feel it in pit of her gut.

"What is it?" she asked. Slowly, carefully, she drew another arrow and notched her bow. The creature's red rimmed eyes followed the action. The balls of its eyes were pink.

I can't move it with my telekinesis. Whatever it is, its mass is too solid, M'gann said, dropping deeper into a crouch, fists clenched.

Can that happen? Dick shifted onto the balls of his feet.

Apparently. It has no higher brain functions either.

Artemis almost took her eyes off the thing, because that wasn't the sort of information M'gann normally tossed around. Especially not lately. What do you mean?

The only thing it wants is to kill.

The creature howled and lunged. Artemis tucked her bow in tight and rolled to the left while M'gann flew up and to the left. Dick vaulted over the creature and struck it hard behind the burnt char of what might once have been an ear. The creature howled again and spun. Artemis was ready this time. She let her fingers loosen and her arrow fly. It hit the softer looking skin along the creature's front leg, piercing the joint between rib cage and leg. The arrow drew blood.

The blood was black and sizzled when it hit the snow.

"That's unexpected," Dick muttered. His eyes narrowed. "We need some of that blood."

A paw the size of a cookie sheet wiped out at Artemis. She felt the tug of M'gann's telekinesis pulling her clear of danger just a fraction of a second faster than Artemis herself could have moved. The edge of one of the creature's claws still managed to nick the Tigress mask covering her face and at once Artemis could smell the scent of burning.

Claws might be poisonous. Don't let it touch you, she thought. Another arrow found its way to the same spot as the first.

Can you get me close enough to that thing to get a sample? Dick asked. He slipped one escima stick back into the straps that kept it tucked safely to his side and with he now free hand he pulled out a thin, silver vial from the pouch on his left hip.

Yes, M'gann said with complete certainty. As long as it's distracted enough.

Got you covered. And Artemis did. She'd been looking for something to take some of her anger out on, and a massive dog-bear fire monster trying to eat her and her friends seemed like the perfect option. She fired another arrow, this one equipped with an electric charge similar to a stun gun. She doubted very much that it would drop the dog-bear freak, but it sure as hell would annoy it.

The creature hissed and reared up its hind legs to swipe at the tip of the arrow lodged between arm and chest. Pink eyes found Artemis and narrowed. Its jowls drew back over teeth as large as her hand.

"Come on, big guy, you know you want a piece of me," she said, her own lips curving backwards to display teeth as well.

This time the creature was more cautions. It lumbered forward on its hind legs, swiping its front paws back and forth over its chest to block the next two arrows Artemis shot. M'gann barreled into the beast, knocked it over sideways to flop on its back.

Thwat!

Thwat!

Thwat!

Thwat!

Four arrows, on for each limb. They hit and erupted into red foam that hardened and solidified as soon as it was exposed to the air. The beast struggled, the muscles under its burnt skin shifting and rippling as it moved. Each limb was pinned, spread eagle so that the gash on the creature's underside was exposed. Dick darted forward and pressed the silver vile close to collect some of the blood oozing from the wound. But M'gann hadn't gotten back up yet. She was curled on her side, gripping the shoulder she'd struck the creature with tightly as she hissed.

"Move it!" Artemis shouted. The bindings cracked. Pink eyes found Dick. Jaws as large as he was wide, large enough to swallow Dick's head whole, no need to chew, snapped open and crashed closed.

Right onto the escrima stick still in his hand.

Another limb broke free, claws swiping for Dick's side.

M'gann was there, blocking the blow. She screamed, smoke drifting up from her hands. Dick staggered. The creature was on them. It was going to rip his face of, the drips of blood burning through Dick's Kevlar and M'gann's clothes. They were going to die.

Hell no.

Artemis forgot the bow slipping from her hands. She forgot the arrows strapped to her back.

She remembered the sword leashed to her hip. The sword she hadn't drawn since the day Wally left. She reached the creature just as it pinned Dick and M'gann under its burning mass. She raised the sword, grit her teeth and lunged. The pink eye flashed upwards, but not in time to avoid the sword driving deep. Not in time to stop the killing blow.

Or not.

It howled and the snow and ice trembled. The massive head lurched backwards, drawing Artemis up with it. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Dick roll to safety and M'gann disappear down into the snow to reappear again beside Dick. It was just the monster and Artemis. Just it, looking at her and her looking at it, and Artemis could see in its eyes that it knew only one of them would be walking away from this.

Artemis would be that one.

A paw hit hard into her back, knocking the air from her cold lungs and smashing Artemis in close to the creature. She could feel its breath against her face, feel the claws sink into her quiver. Teeth found the down of her jacket and that was it.

"I'm not dying here!" ripped itself out of her throat as Artemis jerked free an arrow, used the shaft protruding from the beast's chest, pulled herself up as much as she could, and slammed the tip down hard.

She felt bone give.

The creature shuttered. It dropped.

And then Artemis thought maybe she would die after all because the thing was so heavy she couldn't breathe. It blocked out the sun, but at least she wasn't cold anymore because it was burning her.

Two pairs of strong arms reached out, one lifting the beast just a fraction and the other pulling at her cloths until Artemis was free. She gasped and kicked at the creature, trying to help Dick get her as far from it as possible. M'gaan waited just long enough for Artemis to be clear before releasing her hold. The body slapped back down with a wet thud. The snow beneath it was melting.

Patches of Artemis' suit were burnt right down to the Kevlar lining along her chest and arms, anywhere that had come into direct contact with the creature. She glanced over her shoulder and found that Dick's Nightwing suit had suffered a similar fate.

M'gann, are you alright? It would have been nice to get the words out in the open, but Artemis's chest was heaving. She couldn't catch her breath, not yet.

Who the hell decided it's a good idea to stab at a monster's face? A crazy person. She was crazy.

Fine. Burnt. Whatever that was…it hurt, M'gann admitted. She held out her arms for inspection, and the black of her uniform was gone in patched along her arm and side. The green peaking through beneath looked raw and irritated. How about you two?

Fine.

Same. What was that thing? Dick added. His fingers squeezed tight on Artemis' shoulders. It was a comforting touch.

"No idea. You should get your sample now, if you need one still. I think god-bear is melting." It was. It totally was. The ribs were all sunken in and liquefying, with little streams of red and rot leaking out against the white snow. Disgusting.

"Got it. That thing gave of an energy reading. The same one I was recording while you two walked the perimeter. It spiked when that thing attacked," said Dick. He helped Artemis to her feet. Once she was steady he moved to M'gann. Very gently he brushed his fingers along the edges of her burnt arm. He frowned.

"We should tell the League about this," M'gann muttered. She narrowed her eyes at the creature and they began to glow. This time the body moved at her command, but when it began to literally drip away from the bones she gave a high squeak of disdain and dropped what was left of the body back into the snow.

"I think it might be time you two told me why we really came out here," she said, turning away from the creature and back to face Dick and Artemis.

They were saved the trouble of answering by a soft but insistent beeping coming from the communicator positioned in each of their ears. They glanced at each other, a silent promise to continue the conversation latter passing between them all, before Dick reached up and tapped the link in his ear.

"What's—"he began, but Jaime's panicked voice drowned out the rest of Dick's standard check in.

"We need Miss Martian! Something's wrong with Bart!"


	6. Chapter 6

There was vomit on his left foot. Not a lot, but it was definitely there. Most of it had ended up on the sidewalk because Jaime was quick enough to get out of the way, but not all of it. Bart looked kind of guilty for a moment when he watched the throw up come into contact with Jaime's shoes. They he hadn't looked like much of anything at all because he'd gone limp and just kind of sunk to the ground. Jaime caught him before Bart landed face first in his own sick, and then he panicked.

Logically, going to the closest hospital should have been Jaime's next move. Instead, he made straight for the Watchtower. There was a med wing in the Star Labs building that Jaime's own futile attempt at removing the scarab took place in, but that building hadn't even entered into the question until Jaime was zata-ing into the Watchtower's main room with a limp Bart in his hands.

Black Canary and Green Arrow were there, standing by the monitors and chatting with Kaldur. Their conversation trailed off at the sound of Jaime's arrival and then died completely when they turned to see him rush forward.

Kaldur was the first to react. He slipped past Canary and Green Arrow to usher Jaime forward. "Is he injured?"  
"I don't know. He was fine on second and then he was throwing up and passed out," Jaime said. Canary had a finger pressed to her ear and was speaking in the sort of clear, clipped way that meant she was talking over a com link and wanted to be sure her words were heard correctly the first time. Green Arrow led the way down a side hall that Jaime was pretty sure lead to the medical wing.

"Why didn't you take him to a hospital?" Green Arrow asked, not looking back at Jaime as he rushed forward. The disapproval was clear in his tone.

"Bart kept saying—I don't know, he was saying his head hurt. I—I just," Jaime stuttered. He glanced down at Bart and felt his own stomach roll. Bart was pale and sweaty, his head tilted backwards over the armor of Jaime's arm at an awkward angle that made him look really, really hurt.

The Impulse is going into seizures, Khaji Da said.

And then Bart went stiff in Jaime's arms and began to twitch. His head jerked backwards. The tendons in his throat bulged and Bart's fingers curled like ridged claws.

"Get him in the bed. Now, now!" Canary demanded, coming up from behind.

It got confusing from there. One second Bart was in his arms and the other he wasn't. There was shouting, and everyone was crowded around the hospital bed. Conner was suddenly there, and Khaji Da kept talking, but Jaime wasn't listening, couldn't hear what anyone else was saying because he was too busy watching the thin needle slip beneath Bart's skin. A shot, just to stop the seizures, that was all, but Bart still looked like he was going to bite off his tongue on accident.

A big hand pulled his shoulder and Khaji Da's voice rose in pitch. The Superboy is assaulting you. Lethal force is recommended. Protect the Impulse.

"What?"

"I said, we need to call M'gann. Or her uncle. There's something wrong with his brain!" Conner said.

The Superboy is using infrared vision. The Superboy is correct. The level of heat concentrated in the Impulse's brain is not recommended.

"Right. Right. I'll call M'gann."

Between the time the breathless voice on the other end of the com link answered and the time M'gann, Artemis and Nightwing entered the room Bart had stopped seizing, but only just. His eyes had rolled back into his head so that only the whites showed.

M'gann's eyes flashed to green. Jaime didn't know what she was doing, not really, but it had to be helping. It had to be, because Bart let out a breath that whined. Sounded like someone was hurting him, but at least he was breathing. Jaime's gut clenched, his insides twisted. Bart shouldn't sound like that. No one should ever sound like that. Milagro did once, when she fell off the swings and broke her arm. But nothing was broken on Bart, at least, nothing that Jaime could see.

Jami had very little experience with M'gann's mind melds, but he knew they were not supposed to be painful. Obviously, he used it on missions without complaint or even second thought because that was kind of the point of a mission; stealth. Personally, he didn't like the link all that much, there were already more people in his had then there should be. He didn't use it the way Conner did, or the way Nightwing did. Megan was helping Bart. She was.

Artemis definitely used the link differently then Jaime, because it looked like she was having a whole monologue going on in her head that only the other members of the original team were privy too. She jerked forward, gesturing with one gloved finger down at Bart on the bed and then her hand whipped backwards to point at Jaime. She didn't look accusing, not exactly, but it definitely wasn't a happy hand gesture.

After what felt like hours of judgmental, meaningful looks, Black Canary cleared her throat. Green Arrow looked for half a moment like he was going to say something, but a sharp glance from her kept him silent. Canary's arms folded over her chest and her lips pressed together in a thin, hard line. Jaime found himself suddenly and forcefully reminded of the first time she threw him out of the training arena and Khaji Da labeled her dangerous.

"Someone want to fill me in on what just happened here?" she asked, but it didn't really sound like a question.

Kaldur turned away from whatever had prompted a stare down with Artemis. "It appears that someone has tried to implant suggestions into Bart's mind."

"And did a terrible job of it," Nightwing added grimly.

M'gann shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. "Bart's brain is…different then Wally's was. It works faster on principle. Much, much faster than any human's should. This was the first time I ever connected to Bart like this, actually," she added, looking up like she expected someone to yell at her for hot having done so sooner.

"But— but what does that have to do with—"Jaime asked.

Do not interrupt the Martian, Khaji Da hissed in the space between his ears. She is your superior in this matter. Let her help the Impulse.

"I am letting her help Bart."

The outburst was ignored, like most of his comments to the scarab were by now. Only Artemis seemed to find it odd and even that didn't manage to overpower her anger.

"It has to do with everything because whoever tried to play house with his head had to slow Bart's brain down. They had to mess with it at their speed, so Bart's whole nervous system was going slow enough to almost kill him," she said. "That's why he was having a seizure."

Green Arrow frowned behind his mask. "Who could do that? I thought Psimon was still in a coma and he's the only one I know of with that kind of juice."

Artemis gave a hard scoff. Her back was bent slightly, shoulders hunched as she looked down at Bart. It reminded Jaime of the way his mother stood over Milagro's bed after she broke her arm. There was something maternal about Artemis in that moment, something raw, possessive, and above all protective.

There was a black, oozy something on her uniform. Jaime glanced at Nightwing. Part of his suit looked to have been burnt down to the Kevlar lining. M'gann's bio-suit was patchy along one side. They looked like they just had a throw down with something vicious.

"He must have fought the drugs off faster than expected. Psimon had to have come across Bart at some point in the last few days. The real question is how he knew to attack Bart if he was out of uniform," Artemis said.

They are hiding something from us, Khaji Da said. The Tigress, the Martian and the Nightwing have traces of a non-carbon, non-terrestrial based life form on them. They are injured.

They wouldn't hide something as big as alien invasion number two from us, Jaime thought. He wasn't sure whether or not Khaji Da could hear the thoughts in his head, but it didn't stop him from trying to keep his part of the conversation privet.

"Are you guys alright?" Conner asked. It kind of tumbled awkwardly out of his lips. Most of his attention was on M'gann and for a guy with the same face as Superman, it was shocking how stilted his emotional expressions could be. If Jaime didn't know Conner, hadn't gone on solo missions with him enough times to get a handle on how Conner expressed himself, he might have thought the look meant constipation rather than concern.

M'gann smiled. It looked off somehow. "We're fine. Bart should be too. I gave him the suggestion to sleep until the medicine he was given wears off," she added, glancing over at Green Arrow and Black Canary.

They nodded in the stiff kind of way that Jaime associated with his parents when they wanted to be upset with him but couldn't think of a good reason to settle on.

"Anyone want to go into the burn marks, the busted suits, and the general air of kid-caught-with-their-hand-in-the-cookie-jar you have going on?" Green Arrow drawled. He shifted his feet, so that his hip bumped against Canary's and stayed there.

Silence filled the room. Artemis, Nightwing and M'gann exchanged looks and very pointedly did not catch eyes with anyone else. They were doing the mind link think again, only this time it didn't look like Kaldur or Conner got to be a part of the conversation. Finally, Nightwing sighed and turned to face the room fully. He was back in leader mode, shoulders stiff and back straight.

"We were in the Arctic. Checking out the sight of the last Reach pod. Routine follow up surveillance," he said.

Jaime watched Black Canary 's face soften as she looked between Nightwing, Artemis and M'gann. "We did follow up surveillance the day after…the incident," she said softly.

They are still lying, Khaji Da whispered.

"We didn't do a very good job of looking over the area then, because we had company," Artemis said, still not looking away from Bart.

"Company?" Kaldur repeated.

"We have a sample in the bioship. Would have brought back the whole thing, but it disintegrated on us," Nightwing said.

"Show us," Kaldur said.

Canary, Green Arrow and the others started to move towards the door, but Jaime hesitated. Artemis hadn't moved from her place beside the bed.

"Someone needs to stay here with Bart. We aren't leaving him alone after that. Not right away," she said, looking away from the bed for the first time.

"I'll stay," Jaime half shouted.

For a moment no one spoke. Artemis raised an eye brow, barely perceptible behind the mask. A hand landed on Jaime's shoulder and he jumped slightly and turned. Nightwing smiled at him, small and kind. It was weird seeing that expression on that face. Garfield always said that Nightwing was fun, liked to play games and be childish at times, but Jaime had never seen it. Maybe things were too tense from the moment he joined the team onwards, maybe Nightwing just grew out of games, but either way Jaime had never seen this kind of look aimed his way. Bart's once, when they went on that raid of LexCorp's green house, and Tim's a few times, but never himself.

"He'll be ok. Miss M is the best at what she does. Stay with him until he wakes up and then we'll go from there," he said, and gave Jaime a slight press in the direction of the bed.

Good. Stay with the Impulse.

"I'm going to stay," Jaime told Khaji Da, but Artemis answered.

She squeezed his arms in passing, something Jaime didn't feel so much as sense through the armor and said, "Thank you. He'd like that."

And then Jaime and Bart were alone. It was weird. Not being alone with Bart, because he'd been alone with Bart a lot in the past. Being alone with Bart while he was unconscious and on the losing end of a brain attack while there were alien things out in the Arctic is what made the situation less than ideal. What if it was something left over from the Reach? What if it was a new attempt to take over the world and they found a way to hijack the scarab again? What if Jaime hurt people he cared about because he couldn't stop himself? What if he didn't get luck twice?

The trace residue on the Nightwing, the Tigress and the Martian's persons was not Reach in origin, Khaji Da said, and there was a bit of a softer note to the words. There is little chance we would be forced to participate in harming your friends again, Jaime Reyes.

"That's something I guess," he muttered.

The plates of armor retracted, leaving Jaime in his sweater, jeans and slightly thrown up on sneakers. He pulled up a chair next to the bed and flopped down. He should call home, tell Mom and Dad that he'd be home later than expected, but he could do that in a little while. Right now he needed to catch his breath, clam down and think about what happened. If he tried, if he replayed the meeting in the park over inside his head, then maybe he could figure out who tried to hurt Bart.

The Impulse's meeting in the part was recorded by the G. Gordon Godfrey before we arrived. I suggest turning on the television and finding the recording.

"Good idea," Jaime muttered. He cast around the room for a remote control and round on the one near the heart monitor. The TV at the end of the bed was small, and not one that was normally used because the Watchtower was out in space and who the hell wanted to pay for cable out in the middle of space? It made him feel better knowing that Nightwing was able to hook up some kind of line to cable stations down on Earth, but it also kind of hurt Jaime's head to think about it too much.

He flipped through channels without really paying attention to what was on the screen. Khaji Da would let him know if the recording popped up, and in the mean time Jaime would keep an eye on Bart.

He looked really little. Young.

Bart was three years younger than Jaime, which didn't seem like that much of a difference most of the time, but today it really did. Today it made Bart seem more like Milagro and less like the guy that helped break him out of Reach control. He knew about Bart's childhood, enough to realize that Bart was tough and smart, but those things were harder to keep in mind when Bart was so still. His lips were parted, tinny whiffs of breath creeping in and out as his chest expanded and contracted. Bart looked like a kid in a way that he never had before, and Jaime wondered if kids shouldn't be allowed to wear masks.

Especially when the mask used to belong to their cousin. Their dead cousin who Jaime didn't save.

And then everything got more complicated because Jaime really liked the way Bart's hair fell into his eyes and he really liked the way that Bart said his name. He really liked Bart. In maybe a way that he shouldn't and definitely a way that made Jaime uncomfortable now that he'd thought of his little sister and his best friend on the team in the same category.

Stop. This is the recording, Khaji Da said and Jaime's finger stilled above the channel button.

If G. Gordon Godfrey was good for anything, it was getting his recordings up on TV as soon as possible. His interviews must not have gone through editing half the time with the turnaround they had between filming and airing. Today was no exception. There he was up on the screen, crooked smile and arched brow center shot. He had a small crowd around him, just like he had earlier, when Jaime found Bart. So far it was early enough into whatever rant was going on for Bart to not be there yet.

"Do you see Psimon anywhere in that crowd?" Jaime asked.

He got the distinct impression that Khaji Da was sighing inside his head. Negative. There is on one in the current crowd that matches the image I have on file for the Psimon.

"Maybe they'll pan out and we'll see him. Psimon has to be there somewhere."

The broadcast was nothing new, nothing ground breaking. Godfrey had the same message in all on his airings; heroes didn't actually exist, and the League was the biggest threat to the world. Blah Blah Blah. Some of Jaime's friends at school were starting to side with Godfrey after then whole Reach invasion thing, and it was an uncomfortable realization that not everyone felt safer with people like Conner or Nightwing around. Brenda did, and so did Paco, but Jaime had a feeling they both at least guessed what he did when he wasn't in class.

Bart groaned and rolled over onto his side. Jaime looked away from the screen in time to see him clap a hand to his skull and scrunch his face up in discomfort.

"Feeling the Mode," Bart slurred into his pillow.

"Hay. How you feeling, ese?" Jaime asked, and then wished he hadn't because Bart just said he was feeling the Mode and in Bart speech that meant he was feeling bad. Obviously.

"Did something hit me? Did I run into a brick wall? I think my brain is—is mush or slush or oatmeal maybe. It's definitely not solid anymore," Bart said. He cracked open one eye and looked up at Jaime. It was dilated and out of focus, but definitely looking at Jaime and seeing him, so that was something. Better than before he passed out at least.

"M'gann had to kind of peak inside your brain for a minute. Someone tried to hurt you, Bart. Someone messed with your brain."

"Oh," Bart said and closed his eye again. If not for the pinched expression on his face Jaime might have thought he'd fallen asleep again.

"Bart, do you remember anything? Do you remember who might have done it?" Jaime asked, leaning closer to the bed. He placed the hand not holding the remote on Bart's shoulder and squeezed lightly, as a show of support. So Bart knew he wasn't alone in this.

Bart grunted to the negative and curled up tighter. "I don't know. I have to think about it. I don't like you just because you can fly."

"What?"

The Impulse is on the screen, Khaji Da said and this time his voice was sharp. Sharp enough to make Jaime flinch and then Bart flinched too because Jaime was still holding onto his shoulder. He moved his hand at once.

The Bart on the screen had a hand on his shoulder as well. G. Gordon Godfrey was leaning close to him, and the camera kept panning back and forth between them until whoever was working the equipment managed to get both of their faces into the shot. Bart was looking at the hand on his shoulder and frowning, but Godfrey was smiling. It was the kind of smile he normally got right before tricking a guest on one of his shows into admitting they hated heroes as much as he did.

"Promise me you'll go home and really think about this," Godfrey was saying. His eyes caught on Bart's and the frown slowly slipped away from Bart's face. To anyone who didn't know him, it would have looked like Bart got star struck.

It didn't look like that to Jaime.

"Think about whether 'heroes' are keeping us safe, or if you like them because they can fly. Will you promise me that?" Godfrey said. The Bart on screen gave a very slow, blank eyed nod.

The Bart on the bed whined. "Turn it off. My head hurts."

Jaime clicked the TV off but he did not take his eyes away from the blank screen. How had he not seen it sooner? How had none of them seen it sooner?

The Psimon was not at the park today. The G. Gordon Godfrey was, Khaji Dai said.

"Yeah," Jaime muttered.

"What?"

G. Gordon Godfrey attacked the Impulse. Recommend termination of the G. Gordon Godfrey.


	7. Chapter 7

He'd been to the Watchtower before. The whole team was there in the beginning. It was hard to forget a place where your uncle tried to kill you because of the little brainwashing starfish finger attached to his spinal cord. Oddly specific threats to his life tended to stay with Wally for the long haul. So, when Dick and Jason brought him to the zata pad meant to beam him up Scotty style to the tower Wally had to do a double take.

The zata platform was inside an old warehouse on the edge of Crime Ally. Pretty standard. What brought Wally up short was the fact that the retinal scan, after blinding him momentarily like it always did, totally shut down the platform. The lights went out, the little sparks that broke down particles and accelerated them through space stopped their rapid fire and blinked into darkness.

"Error. Designation 003 already in Watchtower. Error. Error," the electronic voice said from somewhere above their heads.

"003? I was B03 back home," Wally said, stepping away from the scanners.

Jason shrugged. It was hard to tell what his face was doing behind that red mask, but based on body language alone Wally was willing to bet eyes were being rolled. It probably should have occurred to them before this point that there were two Wally Wests in this world, and the platform wasn't going to distinguish between them both. They were lucky the whole thing didn't explode the second Wally got too close to the machine with the sort of paranoid security measures Batman tended to place on things.

"Shouldn't it have exploded by now?" Damian asked. He crossed his arms over his chest and jutted his chin out to glare more fully at Dick, Wally, and Jason. It might have been Wally's imagination, but he thought the scowl was a tad more intense when directed at Dick then with anyone else. Like Damian was trying to pick a fight or something.

If he was, he was going to be disappointed because Dick gave no indication behind the cowl that he cared how deeply Damian frowned at him. Instead, Dick clapped a hand to his head in a decidedly un-Batman like way and moved with a swiftness that never failed to impress Wally over to the computers set against the back wall, close to the zata platform.

"I should have realized that she'd program it to be sure no one could be logged into the system twice. Good security measure, that's for sure," he said.

"She?" Wally asked as the lights inside the zata tube burst back into life.

"Oracle ," Jason supplied. He strolled forward, glanced over Dick's shoulder and then turned back to Damian. "You really should have stayed home. You don't have a designation or the authorization to zata into the Watchtower yet."

"If you're letting a potential threat in, one whose only qualifications are that he shares the same DNA as someone you trust, then you should have no problem letting me into the Tower. You trusted my father more than you trust the Flash." Damian didn't stomp his foot, but his hands clenched harder along the folds of his uniform.

Bart wasn't this mad when he came back to the past, but he was definitely clingy. Like, show-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-unannounced kind of clingy. Artemis almost shot him once, because he'd vibrated through the front door and started raiding the refrigerator. It was annoying as hell at first, having a kid as hyper and easily distracted follow him around like a puppy, but Uncle Barry liked Bart and it was hard to fault the kid for wanting to get to know family. Once Wally knew the truth behind the trip to the past he couldn't find it in himself to even get mad when Bart stole his Chicken Wizzis.

It was possible that Damian was the same way. No one had given specifics about when Bruce died, and Wally hadn't bothered to look the information up online where an approximation of the date was sure to be, but it had to have been resent. Dick still moved like he didn't have a cape, and someone with his skills would acclimate to a change like that fast.

"B03, right? You should be all set to zata through now," Dick said, straightening up and away from the computers.

"Are you going to ignore what I said, Grayson?"

Dick sighed. He glanced at Jason, something Wally only knew because he'd become a master at knowing when Batman was looking at him from behind the cowl with all the times he and his Dick were scolded, and then turned back to Damian.

"This isn't about whether or not I trust you. It's about whether the others are ready to take that step. Most of them aren't. No one's allowed to bring their younger partners into the Tower, not yet. This is still too new and if it blows up in our faces I'd rather you not be there when it happens. It's for your safely," he said. Wally shifted awkwardly and looked away.

It was the same tone his Dick used with Jason after he joined the team. Too young, too inexperienced, not ready for the big game yet. Jason hadn't listened either.

"If you have such little faith in your cohorts at this stage it doesn't bode well for the longevity of your little club house," Damian sneered.

Dick shrugged and smiled. "True. It's a work in progress. Besides, you just want to see Starfire."

Damian's whole face turned red. This time he did stomp his foot as he snapped, "I do not!"

It was the most like a kid he's sounded since Wally had met him, and it was hard not to laugh. The sound earned him a very withering look, but then Jason was laughing too and pushing Wally towards the zata platform.

"If you don't want to see Starfire there's something wrong with you," Jason said before giving Wally one last shove forward.

"Kid Flash, designation B03," the mechanical voice said, and then the old warehouse disappeared.

There was the momentary feeling of disorientation, of being in too many places all at once and not quite fitting any of them, before the world materialized again. The sleek while walls and floor of the Watchtower were exactly the same in this world as they were in his own, so that was something at least. The same hallway led off of the zata platform, but it looked less lived in somehow, newer. Which made sense considering the debriefing Jason gave before they went to the warehouse. The League was new, about two years old now. It was something the Batman of this world worked hard to build after Jason returned to this reality. A support system suddenly seemed like a good idea, Jason said, and Batman was nothing if not good at getting results. He died before the League was fully functioning.

Identities were kept secret. The "sidekicks"—and Jason was ridiculously amused with himself for using that phrase— weren't allowed into the Watchtower because no one wanted to risk their younger counterparts until they were sure the new team up wasn't going to go south.

"Dick set that rule up himself, actually," Jason admitted. "He didn't want anyone he wasn't comfortable sharing his identity with getting that close to Damian so soon after…after what happened with Bruce."

"What happened with Bruce?" Wally asked before he could think better of it. He wasn't as bad as Bart but there were still definitely times when he spoke without thinking first. Happened to Barry and Jay in the beginning too.

Jason looked at him for a moment, contemplative. "What happened to the Jason in your world?"

Until that moment Wally had thought he'd done a good job of hiding what sadness he might have about the Jason from his world. At his silence the Jason in front of him shrugged and pulled his red helmet on.

"I'll share mine when you're ready to share yours."

A loud shriek echoed off the walls of the Watchtower as two more telltale flashes of light signaled Dick and Jason's arrival. Something streaked past Wally and only his super speed allowed him to catch a glimpse of the threat coming. He acted on instinct. With one hand Wally shoved Jason off of the platform and with the other he spun Dick out of the line of danger. The streak stopped, inches from his face.

A woman, maybe in her mid to late twenties, stood before him. Well, not stood. She was kind of floating there, half an inch off the ground. Her hair was a vibrant, wild red and her skin was orange, with green eyes that almost glowed. She narrowed those eyes, cocked her head to the side and contemplated Wally.

"You are the friend that Batman who was once the Nightwing spoke of, yes? You are not as tall as the Flash here, which Red Hood explains you will one day be," she said, and her voice had a musical lilt to it that Wally couldn't place.

"Jesus, Kid, could you worn a guy next time?" Jason grumbled, pushing himself up off the floor. He was being dramatic, because Wally saw him roll and land perfectly fine a second ago. His words caused the woman to squeal, and that was when Wally realized the initial sound had been her cry of excitement.

The woman flung her arms around Jason's shoulders and planted her feet on the ground. She arched her back, lifting him clear off the floor as she laughed.

"You have come to visit me, as you promised. How glorious!"

"Nice to see you again, too, Starfire."

Starfire was definitely not what Wally was expecting. Mostly because she was orange, but also because she was running around in less cloths then Wonder Woman. Just a purple bra and underwear. Like, a purple bikini with thigh high boots and metal arm guards. She had abbs that Artemis would be envious of. Hell, Wally was envious of them.

Starfire set Jason down again and then flitted across the room to lift Dick up off the ground in an equally tight hug, which he returned wholeheartedly.

"So, Batgirl's not in the picture then," Wally muttered as he stepped off of the platform.

"Which one we talking about?" Jason muttered in quiet, sly tones.

Before Wally had a chance to ask him what he meant, more people entered the room. Their faces held the echoes of familiarity, but they were older. Wonder Woman had a hard set to her mouth that Wally had never seen before, Superman walked with a firmness that came off somehow sterner then it should be. Aquaman wasn't present and neither was Red Arrow, but John Stewart was, as well as a man who looked half robot. Green Arrow was there, but his goatee was shorter. There were people Wally didn't recognize, but the one figure in the whole group that stood out was the man dressed in red and yellow with lightning bolts.

The Flash.

The Wally West of this world.

It was a mark of how much thing stayed the same that Wally and his older counterpart met half way, each stopping short just shy of running into the other. They leaned in close, Wally with his eyes narrowed. It looked like the Flash was doing the same.

"I was such a cute kid," The Flash said, one hand on his chin in contemplation.

"I grew up sexy," Wally said with a nod.

There was a moment of silence. Then Dick laughed, the sound echoed by Starfire and Jason.

"Flash, you are very funny," Starfire said.

Wonder Woman clapped a hand onto the Flash's shoulder and gave him a look Wally thought might have meant, "behave yourself" because that's what it would have meant back home, but he couldn't be sure. Either way, when she turned to look at him it was with a much softer set to her mouth.

"Batman tells us that you're a little displaced. We're hoping to be able to fix that."

"Sounds good to me."

Back when the mentors were brainwashed by starfish Wally had been too concerned with not being killed, discovering he really did like Artemis, and Green Arrow trying to stab him in the back to think about going to the council room. Dick did, when everything was said and done and the League was recapping everything that had happened. He said it was intimidating. Wally kind of felt like that was an understatement now. No one was being hostile or rude, but the looks of interest and mild suspicion were still there. Expected, but it was had to sit still when Wonder Woman and Superman were watching him and frowning.

Now he knew how Conner felt in the beginning.

Starfire pointed to the screen above the table. "The technology of my people was beneficial in helping the Oracle to piece together how to help you, Kid Flash. Also, the knowledge of the Speed Force that the Flash provided was key."

"Speed Force?" Wally asked, ignoring the way Green Arrow kept trying to catch his eye.

"The Flash in your world never told you about the Speed Force?" Flash asked. He slapped his hands down on the table and leaned half out of his seat to get a better look at Wally.

"I don't think they knew about it," Wally said. It kind of felt like he was speaking ill of Uncle Barry and Jay, like he was giving them up and tattling to a teacher. It was a they-didn't-do-their-homework kind of feeling.

The Flash looked shocked. His mouth hung open and he blinked a lot, the same way that Wally looked at Artemis when she said she didn't like one of his favorite foods. Like the idea was just too inconceivable to handle.

"It's…it's the source of all our power. It's the thing that lets us run, that lets us travel through solid objects, that lets us do what we do," Flash said.

"So, how does that help me get back home?"

"With the technology from Starfire helping to stabilize your trip, we think you can utilize the Speed Force and accelerate your molecular structure to a speed that will breach the inter-dimensional wall. The Speed Force has no limits in space and time, so with a little help you should be able to get home."

"You want him to do what?" Jason asked.

The Flash glanced at him, lips pursed. "With Star's help, Kid Flash should be able to run fast enough to enter the Speed Force and get home."

"Ah. Sounds good. Run, Kid Flash, run," Jason said, waving his hand a bit to encourage the Flash to continue.

"So I just…run real fast," Wally said slowly. "And then I get home."

"Yes! That is it exactly," Starfire said, smiling and nodding. Wally was sure he'd never seen hair that red before. More red than Babs' or M'gann's and definitely redder then Roy's. "When do we start?"

"Now," Superman said. He pushed himself away from the table. It was a silent signal. The rest of the table stood as well. Wally slipped out of his chair and rubbed his hands together. His palms were sweaty beneath the fabric of his suit. Speed was kind of his thing, and normally Wally was down with taking things as fast as he could. The one and only exception had been Artemis. They moved slow, moved together, in time and without the need to test the outer limits because they had forever to get there. They still had forever, but as soon as he got home, Wally planed on holding her close and staying that way for as long as she would let him.

This, however, this was going fast. The Speed Force was something new and unknown that Wally would rather spend time studying before he tried to use it to travel between detentions. But, hay, he was a cool dude. He could be spontaneous and if the League, even a League that was younger than the one back home, said this would work then it would work.

They lead him to a room that Wally knew as the medical wing back in his time. The space was large enough to fit most of the people gathered comfortably, although the guy who looked half machine opted to monitor from another room. There was a treadmill set up, with some odd-looking wires and cables hooked up to it. Starfire flew ahead and for half a second it looked like her hair was on fire. She stopped beside the treadmill, a foot of the ground.

"This is the treadmill of Speed Force. You will be able to run at your top speed here, Kid Flash," she said.

Dick clapped a hand down on Wally's shoulder. He smiled beneath the cowl and gave a gentle squeeze. For a moment Wally felt disoriented, dizzy. This was a role reversal. He was older than Dick, not by much, but he was. Back in the beginning, when they first met and started working together because Batman was afraid of what would happen to Robin if he didn't get to socialize and Barry wanted to make sure Wally had other people he could call if he ever got into trouble, Wally was the one giving the reassuring shoulder squeezes. Dick was mature and more readily able to deal with the kind of violence and pain that Gotham threw at him, but Dick was still a kid, and every so often he looked it. Hell, the growth spurt that put them on eye level only happened a year and a half ago. Until then, Artemis was taller than Dick.

This Dick, the one looking out of the eyes of Batman, wasn't that much taller or that much bigger, but he suddenly felt that much older.

"You ready for this, KF?" he asked.

Wally nodded, felt that wasn't strong enough a response, and punched one fist into an open palm while rolling his shoulders.

"Totally. Yeah. Let's do this."

The Flash took Dick's place, a hand guiding Wally to the treadmill. He smiled, and it was weird. His teeth were whiter than Wally's, which was just unfair. Maybe he didn't drink as much coffee? Artemis was the coffee drinker, she liked it way more than he did, but every once in a while Wally would help himself to some as well. What if whiter teeth was a trade-off, what if this Wally didn't have an Artemis in his life?

"It's going to be easy. All you have to do is run. As fast as you can. I know it seems like you're going to race right off the treadmill, but trust me, you won't. I've used it before to test this. Starfire and Cyborg have your energy signature fed into the computer, so you should feel a push in a specific direction. Once you're in the Speed Force, listen to the push. It'll guide you home," The Flash said, clearly and calmly.

"Right. Sounds simple enough," Wally replied, eyeing the treadmill.

Without warning the Flash hugged him. Wally floundered for a moment, unsure what to do before patting his older self on the back in what had to be the most awkward show of affection of all time.

"You look happy. Tell Barry and Jay that I miss them," Flash said, soft and low. Superman would be able to hear it, but not the others.

"I will. Find Artemis and get yourselves a dog."

Flash pulled back, confusion radiating out from behind the mask. "Artemis?"

"Crock. Trust me on this one."

And then someone else was hugging him from the side and slightly behind, and it was really messing with his head to have Batman acting so affectionate. When was the last time the Dick from his world had been so relaxed with his affection?

Didn't matter. When Wally got back he and Dick were going to have a long chat about overworking one's self and then maybe Dick, Artemis and Wally could all go out for dinner.

"Take care of yourself," Dick said, pulling back.

Wally nodded. "You too. Tell Robin I said good-bye."

"Enough mushy, teary farewells. Get yourself back home and take care of yourself," Jason said. He held out a fist for Wally to bump and the tension building up in the room lessened enough for Wally to grin and return the gesture.

He hopped onto the treadmill and took a deep breath. A glance at Starfire and Flash, both of whom nodded, was all it took and then Wally was running. He started off slow, testing the limits of the machine, increasing his speed incrementally, bit by bit, until the rest of the room began to blur around him. It was the same as when he was a kid looking out the car window. Colors began to bleed together. If he focused Wally would be able to pick the people clustered around the treadmill out, see them clearly, but they weren't what he needed to focus on now.

This was the fastest he'd ever run. In the Arctic Wally pushed himself to a point he hadn't hit before. The Reach machine did helped, but even before the first burst of energy struck him something had felt different. In the moment, Wally assumed it was adrenalin, a runner's high, or maybe fear over how terrible this could all go wrong if he messed up. Tingling traveled up his lags, down his arms, to the tips of his hair, so that his whole body felt weightless and permeable. That feeling was back. There was a light, flashing just ahead, which was paradoxical because Wally wasn't actually moving anywhere, just running in place, but the light was getting closer.

Sound vanished.

Cotton had been shoved in his ears, or something very similar. There was the echoing nothingness that resembled having ear plugs in underwater all throughout Wally's head. He knew he was running, knew his arms were pumping back and forth, but he couldn't feel himself doing it anymore. Something was puling at him, leading him towards the light, and it felt so good. So safe. So right. This was what he'd been missing without ever knowing it, this was what he needed all along. Just to visit this place and feel alive.

There were voices whispering in the ether around him, but Wally couldn't make out what they were saying. The actual words were blocked by the cotton ball feeling in his ears, but the tone was discernible. The voices sounded insistent, loud.

There was something in here with him. Something in the Speed Force. He thought, for half a second, that Bart was running there beside him, thought they locked eyes and recognition passed between them both, but then Bart wasn't there anymore.

Wally could see the end. The light was braking up, and just passed it there was a glimpse of white and ice. The Arctic. Home. Artemis.

And then something slammed into him so hard Wally felt one of his ribs break.

The force of the blow propelled him backwards. He rolled head over feet, the thing on his tail, and then he wasn't in the Speed Force. He was back in the Watchtower, back in the room with the treadmill and the League, but the thing followed him out.

Someone screamed. Wally rolled back to his feet in time to watch as a giant molten, fiery dog the size of a small bear lunged at him, and then Starfire and Wonder Woman where there. Wonder Woman blocked the beast's blow with her arm guards, and then hissed as smoke began to hiss up from the point of contact. Starfire ducked under the creature's swiping claws and hit it hard in the jaw.

It reeled backwards and Starfire winced as her skin burnt from the contact.

Wally looked down at the front of his suit, where the thing hit him. It was burnt through in patches.

"What the hell is that?" Jason demanded.

The room moved in a half circle, pining the beast in. It roared and gnashed its teeth before lunging again.

An arrow embedded itself in the creature's eye, a golden lasso cinched around its neck and pulled the creature thundering down onto the ground where it jerked in violent rage. The force of the motion sent Wonder Women flying over the creature to crash into the far wall. The ground the creature rested on began to bubble and melt.

"That thing is going to destroy the Watchtower. We're in space guys," the Flash said, a note of urgency in his voice.

The creature roared again, flesh dripping off its muzzle and made a swipe at Dick and Jason. They dodged, Dick tossing electrified knifes that lodged themselves in the joints of the creature's front legs and sent sparks over the thing's hide.

It had no effect at all.

"Seriously, what they hell is that?" Jason asked again.

"It's a creature form Apokolips," Superman said grimly. "We're dealing with Darkseid."


	8. Chapter 8

Things were spiraling out of control. Not as bad as when the Reach attacked, but still bad enough to make Dick's skin itch. There was a monster lurking around the last known location hostile alien technology was used, someone with the ability to manipulate minds nearly slowed Bart's brain down enough to kill him, Wally was still no closer to being rescued and now Batman was looking at him in silent disappointment. At least this time no one was hurt because of Dick's poor leadership.

The stupidest moment of his life was fighting with Kaldur over who should be the leader all those years ago.

"Tell me again why you chose to wait until you had returned to the Watchtower before alerting anyone to the danger in the Arctic?" Batman asked. He sounded clam, collected even, but Dick knew enough to understand that it was his "you have done something foolish and shown poor judgment, Dick," tone.

"We received a distress call about Impulse. In the rush to get back to base I didn't think to contact anyone about the Arctic find."

Batman's lips pressed together hard before he turned to Black Canary. "Is he alright?"

Canary looked grim. "M'gann did what she could, and we called J'onn as soon as she got Bart stabilized, but this is bad. Someone attacked him while he was out of uniform. We don't know if they realized who they were trying to influence or if it was just coincidence. We don't even know for sure what they were trying to have him do."

Batman nodded like he knew this already. It was one of the most annoying and comforting things about working with him. No matter what the incident, Bruce acted like he had expected the eventual outcome. There were times, when Dick was younger and just getting into the game, that he actually believed Batman knew everything. It was a hard, slow realization when that belief was proven wrong. Up until Jason died Dick still though Bruce could do no wrong. Batman, the man behind the mask, could do anything.

Now, it was relieving to see Bruce take action like this. Two heads were better than one and three heads were better than two. All of the incidents had to be connected somehow. It was unreasonable to think that so many things could happen in a single day and not have them be connected. The question was how the pieces fit together, not if they did.

"You brought back a sample of this creature's blood?" Batman asked, pointing to the bard brown bones sitting on the examination table behind him.

Superman and Conner were scanning the remains top to bottom with every type of trick their eyes could manage, while J'onn and M'gann stood off the to the side behind them, their own eyes glowing bright. There wouldn't be any mental link to establish with bones, but they could test the properties of the remains in ways that he machines in the Watchtower could not.

Dick held out the metal vial of blood. Batman gave it a speculative look before taking it from his hand.

"Whatever that thing was made out of was corrosive and the glass sample units wouldn't have lasted long. Even the metal one was hot enough to burn," Dick said.

"Touching that things was enough to burn. Its skin melted away most of our suits and burnt M'gann's arms," Artemis added. She swept her arm up and down over the front of her Tigress uniform, striped down to the Kevlar lining and under armor in some places.

"That would suggest that this creature came from somewhere hot," Kaldur muttered. He frowned at the bones, and then at the vial of blood in Batman's hands. "The question is, where did this creature come from and how did it get to the Arctic?"

"And are there more," Green Arrow added.

Lots of questions, not a lot of answers. The best course of action right now would be to analyze the blood and see if they couldn't find something in it to indicate if the creature was extraterrestrial, magical, scientific, or some combination of all three. It didn't seem likely that Cadmus was involved in this, but one could never entirely count them out. Not after all the cloning and genetic experiments they involved themselves with.

Batman moved to the back wall where a counter was set up with high-powered microscopes and forensic equipment comparable to the equipment Bruce kept in the cave. "I'll see what I can find out with this sample. Superman, J'onn, anything?"

"This thing is definitely non-terrestrial. The marrow of its bones look like magma. It's radiating heat still. Not harmful radiation," Superman added, looking a little sheepish.

"So now the question is, where did this thing come from and who attacked Impulse."

"I know who attacked Bart!"

As one the figures crowded into the room turned to peer down the curved hallway. Jamie flew into the room, stumbling to a halt in front of Batman. He has his suit on again in full, but it did nothing to hit the agitation coursing threw him. He bounced on the toes of his feet, hands curled into fists at his sides as he looked up at Batman.

"I think I know who attacked Bart. G. Gordon Godfrey." Some of the agitation seemed to bleed out of Jamie as Batman narrowed his eyes in concentration, but not enough to make him back down.

"What evidence do you have to support this claim?" Batman asked, but the question was nearly drowned out by Artemis' "Who's watching Bart if you're here?"

Jaime hesitated. He glanced at Artemis, fumbling through a "I—I, no one?" and then snapped to attention when Batman repeated his question. "Khaji Da figured it out. Bart was mumbling a command over and over again, and then we noticed that Godfrey told Bart the same command earlier today when they were in the park together. That was just before Bart got sick."

"Khaji Da?" Green Arrow asked the room at large.

"The scarab. It's his name," Jamie clarified with a shrug.

"The bug has a name? Wait, can it talk to you?" Green Arrow demanded, eyes wide.

Batman cut in. "The scarab isn't new information. Blue Beatle, what was the command?"

"It was weird. He was telling Bart to think really hard about whether or not heroes, u-us, whether or not we keep people safe. Bart woke up almost crying about it. He's been repeating 'I'll think about it. I'll think about it' for the last five minutes."

Batman nodded. He glanced at Kaldur, who nodded back and took a step forward. He caught the eyes of all the members of the team present, Artemis, M'gann, Connor, Jamie and Dick himself before speaking. "We need to investigate this. If what Blue Beatle says is true, then we need to know why Impulse was targeted or if it was coincidence. More troubling still, how many of Godfrey's guests and acquaintances have been subject to the same influences? What is his end goal?

"We will split up into two groups. One group will investigate Godfrey, the other will stay here to keep an eye on Bart. Until we know for certain why he was targeted we must assume it was for a particular reason."

"I'll stay with Bart," Artemis said, sharp and firm into the silence following Kaldur's words.

Almost at once the touch of M'gann's mind inside his own swept over Dick. He'd asked once, a long time ago, if other mind readers could hear their silent conversations when they were present and the team linked up, but M'gann assured Dick they could not. It was a closed link, one that they could not intrude on without making it know to her that they were listening. Even with that in mind, Dick found it hard not to glance at J'onn to see what he thought about the psychic conversations. How many people would understand that it was the intimacy of the link and not the secretive aspect that the team relied on?

I-I was thinking I'd stay with Bart, Jamie thought. He still sounded less comfortable with the mode of communication then most of the other new members of the team, but Dick supposed that had more to do with the scarab apparently chattering away in his mind then M'gann's link.

No. Your scarab can scan for and identify things that our databases cannot. If there is a threat of extraterrestrial origin, you will likely be the first able to identify it. You are needed on the ground, Kaldur countered, but with a gentle hand.

Dick watched as Jaime's shoulders tensed, his gaze slipping out of focus for just a moment before clearing again and nodding. The scarab must agree with Kaldur.

But you don't have to be the one that stay behind, Artemis. M'gann stepped away from her uncle, reaching out to lay a hand on Artemis' arm. Green Arrow looked slightly baffled, Superman sharing the expression, but Batman, Black Canary and Martian Manhunter didn't seem the least bit perturbed by the silent conversation happening around them. They were too used to seeing it happen.

It's the most logical choice, and I want to. You need to go with them to help in case Godfrey attacks anyone else's mind. Blue needs to identify, Kaldur has already proven to have effective defense against alien tech, and Dick has the lay of the land and look of the creature to go off of. I want to keep an eye on the kid, Artemis thought. She squeezed the hand M'gann had on her arm and gave a brief, if heartfelt, smile.

I'll stay with you, Conner offered. If Bart freaks out you're going to need someone there to help catch him.

Artemis laughed out loud at that. Conner's brows scrunched up in confusion, but Dick got it. He really did.

"Alright. Artemis and Superboy will remain behind to guard Impulse. Miss Martian, Blue Beatle, Nightwing and myself will go investigate G. Gordon Godfrey," said Kaldur, turning back to Batman.

"Superman, Green Arrow and Black Canary will investigate the coordinates where you three found this creature," Batman said, gesturing towards Dick, M'gann and Artemis. "I'll see what I can learn from the sample you brought back. Martian Manhunter, will stay on location should Impulse need assistance."

And it was settled. Quick, efficient, to the point. The way thing used to be, before Dick took command and Kaldur went under cover. The way things used to be when the world made sense. The respective groups began to disperse, but Artemis caught Dick's arm as they stepped from the room. She pulled him to the side so that the others could walk past, and Dick watched as her eyes lingered on Jaime for a moment.

"Keep a close eye on Blue, ok? Bart's been miserable for weeks because they weren't talking and if something happens to Jaime while he's KO'd it's going to mess Bart up bad," she said softly.

Dick nodded. "You think it's time for the birds and the bees talk yet?"

Artemis grinned. For the first time in almost a month she looked happy, genuinely amused even. "More like the 'he's thirteen and you better keep that in mind' talk."

Wally mentioned, about a week before he…vanished, that Bart talked about Jamie a lot. A lot. He kind of figured it had to do with the "possible destroyer of our world" angle of their relationship, but Dick was willing to bet it was more than that. He'd teased Wally about giving Bart a long talk about relationship practices in this time, because who knows what the kid was working with as an example from back home, and Wally insisted Bart was way too young to even be thinking about that kind of stuff, completely ignoring the make-out sessions Dick and Zatana used to have at thirteen.

"Stay whelmed. We'll be back soon with answers."

The team zataed down to Keyston City, slipping out of an unremarkable rundown building. Discretion was the name of the game now. Kaldur had a zip-up sweater and loose pants on over his uniform, M'gann had transformed her clothing into jeans and a t-shirt. The burn marks on her right side looked irritated and raw when her skin was no longer green, but she'd done the best she could to make the aria look like an unremarkable rash. Jamie had simple retracted his armor, and Dick had what was left of his suit on underneath his own pair of lose fitting pants and long sleeved shirt. He'd gotten so used to wearing the sunglasses now that it was habit even when he wasn't meant to be undercover, something Bruce had to remind him about more than once.

"This is reconnaissance. We do not want to engage until we understand the scope of the threat we are facing," Kaldur said. He led the group out onto the street. M'gann fell into step beside him, which left Jaime to trudge next to Dick. He glanced up out of the corner of his eye more than once, half opened his mouth to say something, and then looked down at his feet. There was something on one of his sneakers and Dick had a good guess what that something was. Bart would be mortified when he realized he'd vomited on Jaime.

"So…Artemis doesn't seem to like me much," Jaime said at last. The group rounded a corner, walking back to the park where Bart was found. After they would go to the studio Godfrey recorded from and then his home.

"She likes you just fine," Dick assured. He slowed the pace down just a bit, let Kaldur and M'gann more just far enough ahead of them to make it appear they were not walking with Dick or Jaime. Just two separate groups meandering around the park, nothing to see here.

"She didn't want me to stay with Bart," Jaime said like that was actually the last thing he really wanted to bring up. Dick waited, didn't push because people had a tendency to shut down when they were pushed and it would do Jaime some good to talk. He should have been going to regularly scheduled appointments with Black Canary to discuss the whole Reach invasion thing, but it never hurt to keep talking.

"I don't need a birds and the bees talk," he finally blurted out.

Dick looked over and down at Jaime, whose face burnt and eyes stared fixedly ahead. For half a second Dick was reminded so strongly of Jason with his first crush on a girl in his class that something deep inside his chest constricted and Dick nearly lost his breath. Tim was nothing like Jason when it came to girls. He had no problem telling Dick he and Cassie were dating once it happened.

"No? You've covered that already?" he asked. He was smiling, which probably wasn't going to be taken well by Jaime, but Dick couldn't help it. This was something he was good at, something he could help with.

"I'm not—I don't—It's not like that," Jamie stuttered. He glanced up at Dick, eyes wide, before wiping his head over his other shoulder and growling out loud, "No one is taking combative action here, chill out."

And now Dick couldn't stop the chuckle that escaped him. "Look. Artemis and Bart are both in a bit of a bad space right now. She wanted you to come with us for all the reasons she said back in the Watchtower, but also because she needed to be with Bart for a little while. Did you know he used to show up at Wally's house almost every night while you were under Reach control? He's been doing the same thing since Wally…vanished. He needed Artemis, because she reminded him of Wally and Artemis needed Bart for the same reason."

"I get that. They're family."

"Yeah. Yeah, they are. The birds and the bees comment had nothing to do with not liking you and everything to do with Bart being thirteen."

Jaime rubbed the back of his neck. He glanced at Kaldur and M'gann, who were now far enough ahead of them to be out of ear shot. "It's not like that. Bart is my hermano, my friend, and that's all."

For the moment maybe, and that was fine. The world wasn't ending anymore, there was no need to rush this kind of thing.

Kaldur and M'gann made a perimeter sweep of the park, Dick and Jaime covered the bench area where the interview took place. It was difficult to use the holo-computer when he was undercover, but not impossible. Dick made sure to link up the readings to the com in his ear and set the computer to scan for energy signals similar to the ones in the Arctic. It was a hunch that all of these things were connected, but Dick was willing to bet his escrima sticks that he was right.

The readings came back positive, pinging insistently in his ear.

"There is a radiation reading here that's really odd," Jaime muttered. "It's not something that should be on Earth, but Khaji Da isn't sure what its origins are."

"Yeah, I'm picking up the same readings that thing from the Arctic gave off."

We should move on, investigate Godfrey's home. He should be at his studio now, Kaldur said within the walls of Dick's mind.

They didn't zata to the nest location, it was too close to have another zata tube set up nearer then the one they used to get to Keystone City in the first place. The walk gave Dick plenty of time to upload the readings his computer took into the system in the Watchtower. He contacted Bruce on the way as well, letting him know more information was coming. The DNA analysis of the creature wasn't completed yet, but Bruce strongly recommended caution with G. Gordon Godfrey. Dick was planning on being cautious, but the little show of concern from Bruce helped ease some of the tension the disappointed look from earlier had put between Dick's shoulders. Bruce was only trying to help. Mistakes killed. They all knew that.

Godfrey lived in a large house in a residential area of the city. It wasn't quite the suburbs, but close enough that Godfrey had a back yard, and enough space between his house and the ones on either side that he'd planted a row of hedges and flowers to frame the house. It looked quaint, comfortable. Totally at odds with the persona Godfrey used when he was on the air. The house looked like Mr. Rodgers should live there, not someone who nearly killed a kid.

Teammate, not kid, Dick reminded himself. The minute you start thinking about them as children the group breaks down.

No one is home in the house on the right and only one person is in the house on the left. Godfrey isn't home either, his house is empty. The red glow faded from M'gann's eyes, but they remained fixed on the house across the street.

Do we just go in then? Jaime asked, glancing between Kaldur and M'gann.

Better to approach from the back. We will have more cover. Nightwing, are their alarms?

Not anymore. Standard home security system, easy to override, Dick assured, glancing up from the holo-computer. It all looked very low profile, unremarkable and normal.

Way too normal for a guy that liked to say he couldn't sleep at night because there were people who could fly running around the planet. Newer security systems were available, ones that were supposed to be better at keeping people with powers out but the system Godfrey used was so outdated it probably wouldn't do much against normal burglars.

They rounded the block, turned to circle around the back of Godfrey's house, and then slipped in through his backyard. M'gann phase shifted her hand through the door, unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the door open. Kaldur went in first, M'gann at his back and Jaime sandwiched between her and Dick, who took up the rear. Inside was as plain and banal as outside. Everything was hard wood floors, dark colors and static decorating that spoke firmly of a bachelor with too much money and not enough inspiration. Hell, it kind of reminded Dick of his apartment in Blüdhaven. It didn't fit with the profile he had of Godfrey either. G. Gordon Godfrey was loud, extravagant, the man wore blue suits on national television, he was going to decorate his own house with more life than this.

Stay together. We still don't know what we're dealing with here, Kaldur advised. He peered around a corner, signaled for the others to follow and then padded soundlessly down the wooden hallway. There were no pictures on the walls of people, just landscapes. The one hanging before the first door in the hallway, the door Kaldur opened and stepped through, was an image of an erupting volcano.

What should we be looking for? Jaime asked as he stepped into the room after M'gann. It was a study, a large one, also decorated entirely in wood and dark colors. A desk took up most of the wall opposite the door, with two large bookcases on the right and left wall and nothing at all on the wall with the door.

Anything unusual, M'gann thought kindly. She was good with the younger members of the team, Garfield especially.

They spread out, Kaldur going to one bookshelf and M'gann the other. Jaime suited up, presumably to scan the room, and Dick went for the desk. It was the most likely spot for something to be hidden. Godfrey lived alone, there was no reason for him to think he had to hide something. Dick moved systematically, one drawer at a time. There were documents and receipts, notes on what Godfrey planed to do a story on next, and an old book in the first few drawers, but nothing incriminating. Nothing to help them figure out what he might be going. There was a computer on the desk as well, which Dick switched on. If there was nothing physically in the desk there might be something on the computer.

The last drawer was deep and locked. Dick raised an eyebrow. None of the other drawers were locked, even the ones that had locks on them. It was a matter of moments before he had the lock picked and the draw open. Inside there was a piece of mercenary. It was small, rectangular, and familiar looking. It was like a massive, thick computer chip colored all in red. Lines ran across the top of the device in a pattern that looked far to deliberate to not mean something and from those lines a soft, sickly blue light pulsed.

"Well, I think I found what we were looking for," Dick muttered.

Kaldur and Jaime were at his side instantly. They watched as Dick pulled the device from the draw and held it up for inspection.

"That looks very familiar," Kaldur said. He reached out and Dick placed the machine in his hands. "The Light agents sometimes had objects that resembled these. Nothing this large or this impressive, but there was a commonality between there devices and this one."

"The runaways from Star Labs had something that looked like this as well."

"That thing isn't from Earth," Jaime said sharply, like it was some sort of revelation.

"I figured," Dick replied.

Jaime shook his head, one hand flailing and the other rubbing at the back of his armored head. "No, no. I mean, not from this world, or this Earth or any Earth. Khaji Da says that he recognizes the radiation now. It's not from this dimension."

M'gann's head whipped towards the door, Dick felt her mind grab his hard enough to knock him forward into the desk with a cry that was echoed by Jaime and Kaldur, and then M'gann screamed. She dropped to her knees and clutched her head and screamed so that it echoed in Dick's ears and inside his skull.

The door opened with a smooth arch. G. Gordon Godfrey stood on the edge of the room, one hand on the doorknob and the other on his hip. He shook his head and tisked.

"It's very rude to go snooping around someone's home uninvited," he said as he stepped into the room.

M'gann curled over, her face pressed into the wood floor, and whimpered. Her hold on Dick's mind did not lessen, but something brushed against it. Dick shuddered and gasped. It felt like an exposed nerve, like someone as pressing on a bruise as hard as they could. It hurt, not unbearably so, but enough to catch his attention.

"You all must forgive me. I know you're in a lot of pain. So much pain. You can barely breathe, the pain is so bad," Godfrey said. He stopped in front of M'gann. A smile curled up the corners of his lips, it was almost kind, might have been comforting on someone else had it reached his eyes.

"I've waited a very long time for this. And you, my dear, you hurt more then all of them, don't you? An open mind is a dangerous thing, isn't it? But it's their fault that you hurt so badly, darling. If you kill them, the pain might stop. Give it a try, see what happens."

And suddenly it clicked. It wasn't mind control the way Psymon was able to control minds. Godfrey worked on suggestions. He was telling them they hurt, telling them they were in pain, and therefore they were. Or, they should have been, but M'gann was shielding their minds. She was getting the brunt of the pain Godfrey was trying to cripple them all with. Her voice still echoed in Dick's head, which meant the link as still up.

Jaime, blast Godfrey, get him away from M'gann! Dick ordered.

At once Blue Beatle's armor morphed into the plasma canon he favored. One blast was enough to knock Godfrey off his feet and break his concentration. The pressure against Dick's mind eased, but M'gann's barrier held strong.

Aqualad pressed the device back into Dick's hand and leapt over the desk, his water barriers out and at the ready. An electric charge rand down them at the liquid slammed into Godfrey, pinning his to the wall beside the door. He screamed as the current ran through him, but not as loud as M'gann had.

"You alright, Miss M?" Dick asked. He knelt down and helped her to her feet. Miss Martian looked pale and shaken, but otherwise unhurt.

"He tried to tell us we were in so much pain we died," she said.

Godfrey thumped his head back against the wood paneling on the wall and laughed. "Oh, good job, little girl. I have to admit, that was some very quick thinking. But not quite quick enough."

Kaldur flew across the room, smashed into the bookcase and fell to the floor. Jaime's feet came out from under him and then his whole body jerked to the left like he'd been hit by a freight train. M'gann gasped as something smashed into her stomach and drove the air from her lungs. Dick felt fingers pry the device from his hand and then something hit him hard enough to leave stars sparking in his vision and drop him to his knees.

All of this happened in the span of seconds.

Oh no.

Bart stood beside G. Gordon Godfrey, the device clutched tightly to his chest. He shook from head to toe, and the shaking grew worse as Godfrey laid a hand on Bart's shoulder.

"Good boy," he said, pulling Bart in closer. "Very good boy."

The others were getting up, Dick could hear them groaning, but it wasn't going to be fast enough. M'gann's grip on his mind was weakening, and he could feel the blazing pain of Godfrey's suggestion creeping in.

"I'm going to borrow little Bart Allen here. Such an interesting child. Completely out of time, in a bubble, a perfectly responsive, perfectly malleable conduit. It has taken year to find someone like little Bart. Not just anyone can be a gate way from dimensions, after all."

"Bart, don't—" Dick began, reaching out, desperate, remembering the tears on Artemis' cheeks at the funeral, the misery in Bart's eyes for the last month—

And then G. Gordon Godfrey pressed something on the machine his hand and he and Bart vanished in a flash of light.


	9. Chapter 9

Bart wasn't feeling good. Well. Bart wasn't feeling well. Superman did good, Superman could feel good, Bart could only feel well. Well, he didn't feel well. Not at all. Not even a little, not even in the same state or hemisphere or universe as feeling well. His head hurt, really, really, really bad. Also, his stomach, which was weird because he didn't remember doing anything which would hurt his stomach.

Except for throwing up on Jaime's shoes. Yeah. He totally did that. Not crash, not crash at all.

Someone was talking and it was making the pulse of pain in his head swell and ebb in time with the flow of their voice. Might have been cool if it didn't hurt so much. Bart's thoughts were hard to gather. They were always a little run away, fast track, hard to catch, but right now it was worse. They felt slippery, oily, he couldn't get a grip on any of them and it hadn't been that hard to think since the first time Father took the inhibitor collar off so many years ago.

"None of this is your fault, you know that, right?"

Conner. That was definitely Conner. Superboy. What happened to him in the Reach invasion, Moded timeline Bart came from? No one knew. History unclear. He wondered if he and Conner would have been friends in the world Bart came from. Probably not, because no one had friends in that place, but Conner was here now and they were kind of, sort of friends-teammates-people-who-didn't-hate-each-othe r and that was crash, yeah?

"I know that. Batman called Flash, he'll be here soon. In the mean time, I going to make sure nothing else catastrophic happens today." And that was Artemis. Bart liked here a lot. Not in the like-like sort of way, because that would be creepy, she was practically his aunt…or cousin...older sister figure? She was kind of like family and that was what counted. She was kind of like Mother, because they both were brave and smart and most likely the only reason so many people stayed alive for as long as they did.

Not Wally, but his death was Bart's fault and not Artemis' at all.

"You want to talk about it? The monster thing? I would have helped if you'd called."

Bart cracked an eye open. He was laying on his side, curled up in a fetal position because it probably hurt more to try and lay out strait. He wasn't sure, didn't remember trying, but instincts were normally right. Conner's voice was coming from just over his left ear, which meant he must be standing on the other side of the bed, because Artemis was sitting on a chair facing Bart. She wasn't looking down, so she didn't know that he was awake. Her Tigress suit was in tatters, exposed down to the Kevlar and it made Bart feel like he was seeing something he shouldn't so he looked up at her unmasked face instead.

"I'm sorry we didn't call you. If it makes any difference, we didn't tell M'gann what we were really looking for out there either."

"Why? I mean…I mean, don't you trust us? Secrets are bad for this team. Really bad." Conner sounded kind of sullen, and Bart was still pretty sure he liked Conner even thought he couldn't fly, but not so sure why that point was important.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I was just afraid if we told anyone the truth and it didn't work, it would hurt more."

"You think Wally's still alive somehow, don't you?"

Bart gasped and was upright before he realized he'd wanted to move. His eyes caught Artemis', both wide and surprised and Conner was shuffling around on his side of the bed, but Bart was too caught up in Artemis' face to care. She looked startled, but the world moved slow and before the surprise there was agreement, she was agreeing, Wally might be alive, there might be hope, they could fix this, the past could be crash and everything would be alright and—

A throb of pain shot through Bart's body, deep down on the tissue level, and he whined. Conner's big hand was there to brace his back and keep Bart from falling off the bed, but Bart felt his stomach roll and the he dry heaved onto the blankets.

"Gross," Conner muttered, but he didn't move his hands and didn't shift away from the side of the bed where he was standing. Conner was nice like that.

"Slow down, you're going to make yourself sick," Artemis said. She stood up from her chair and moved over to the cabinets. A long time later—probably a minute—she returned with two wet cloths. One she placed on the back of Bart's neck. It was cold and nice and Bart sighed in relief. The other she used to wipe first Bart's face and then the bed. That Bart didn't like at all. Not crash. Moded. Totally moded.

He snatched the cloth out of Artemis' hands and shook his head. "Don't. My mess, I'll fix it."

Artemis looked past him, to Conner and something passed between them unsaid. It wasn't fare. M'gann probably wasn't there, because Bart didn't see her in the room and she wouldn't stay invisible just to mess with him, so they were sharing meaningful looks and getting the unspoken message all on their own and Bart had never had that with anyone ever.

"Lie down, ok? Someone did a number on your brain and you need to take it easy," Conner said gently. He pressed back on Bart's shoulder and for some strange reason all Bart could think of was how careful Conner must be all the time to not hurt people with his strength. If Bart wanted to he could resist the pressure, because Conner was letting him, and Conner let him almost all the time.

"Someone attacked me?"

Cool fingers brushed the bangs away from his face, a hand holding the damp cloth against his neck. Artemis nodded in response to the question, but seemed way more interested in looking Bart over for dings or breaks or cracks or something then expanding on the whole "you were attacked" thing.

"You don't remember?" she asked once she seemed satisfied with the visual inspection.

"No. I think I threw up on Jaime, though."

"So, I should take it as a sigh of affection then?" Conner asked. He smiled, kind of lopsided and self-conscious, and Bart could totally get behind that, but it was also kind of funny because now Bart'd thrown up on two people in one day and that had to be a record.

"Totally," he said. Conner laughed.

"Barry is on his way, should be here any minute. I think I'm going to call J'onn in to take a look at you now that you're all the way awake. Just to be sure everything is ok. You alright with that?" asked Artemis. She leaned over the bed, smiling down at him, and for one long second Bart felt like he was back home, his mother tucking him into bed after a hard day's labor.

You want to come to me. You want to come now.

Bart blinked. "Did you hear something?"

"No?" Conner said, head tilted to the side.

You need to come to me now, Bart Allen. Right now.

Bart sprang from the bed, so rushed he almost tripped himself with the thin sheet. Artemis steadied him before Bart could hit the ground, which was good, but she didn't let go when he tried to walk to the door, which was bad.

"I have to go. I need to go." Bart pulled against her grip. It would be fine just as soon as she let go of him, everything would be fine. He had to go.

"Bart, calm down. What's wrong." Artemis spun him around and tilted Bart's face up to look at her, but Bart needed to go. Conner moved from behind the bed, positioned himself in front of the door and that wasn't crash, totally not crash at all, Conner wasn't as nice as Bart thought if he was going to try and stop Bart from leaving.

COME NOW.

Bart clapped his hands to his head and screamed. He had to go. He had to and they didn't understand and it was killing him. So Bart ran.

In the space between her inhale and exhale Bart twisted his arm out of Artemis' grip and pushed her backwards with all the strength he possessed. She flew backwards and slammed into the back wall, missing the counter and the sink she'd used to wet the cloths by centimeters. Bart spun and lunged for the door, but Conner managed to snag the back of his shirt. It pulled tight against Bart's throat and he thought he was going to be sick again, and that slowed him down enough for Conner to wrap him up in a bear hug.

"You're not going anywhere. Superman! We need J'onn!" Conner shouted.

COME.

Bart screamed again. It hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt!

"Calm down. Bart, Bart please. Let us help you," Artemis said, but she didn't understand. He didn't want help, he had to go and they weren't letting him and they were going to kill Bart on accident and then everything would be over.

For the first time in his life Bart closed his eyes, set his jaw and vibrated himself through the flesh and bones that made up Conner's arms. Conner screamed. Bart's feet hit the floor again and he ran.

He ran down the hall.

He ran past Superman and Martian Manhunter.

He ran to the zata tube and past Grandpa Barry coming out.

He ran down the streets of Keystone city.

He ran through the open door, into the large house and heard, You want to take them down, echoing in his head and how did the voice know he wanted to do that? He'd always wanted to do that, he just hadn't realized it until the voice told him so, because the voice was smart, so smart.

He knew he hit Kaldur hard, Jaime would have broken something if not for the suit, M'gann never saw him coming, and Dick? Dick was nothing. Dick was normal. Dick shouldn't even count as a hero because the voice wasn't counting him as one and the voice knew everything. So Bart grabbed the rectangular thing out of Dick's hand and gave it to the voice. To G. Gordon Godfrey, because the voice was right and how had he lasted this long without knowing that? Something flashed in his vision, bright, searing, hurt his eyes, and then everything was black.

The first thing Bart became aware of was the heat. Each breath in and out hurt, reminded him of the old days, like there was ash in his mouth only this time the ash was still burning. Embers. That's what they'd be if they were still hot; embers. Bart could feel his heart beating hard inside his ribs, but he couldn't make himself moves. He was on his back, limbs splayed haphazardly all around him, and he didn't know how he got there. Wasn't even sure where "there" was because his eyes wouldn't open. Did he want them open? He couldn't remember. It seemed reasonable that he would, but a little voice in the back of his head was telling him to wait, stay still, don't move, don't let them know you're awake yet.

He remembered Artemis and Conner being in his…bedroom? No, that would be weird. The Watchtower, maybe?

A hand curled into the fabric of Bart's shirt and lifted him up. And up. And up.

The bottom of Bart's stomach swooped away and landed somewhere below his knees. The muscles of his neck didn't want to work right, because it was taking so much effort to get Bart's head to lift and even then it only worked because the hand holding him up shook until Bart's scull flopped backwards to rest on his shoulders. It made breathing harder, but now he could see the person holding him.

…Or, not a person.

Red eyes stared down at Bart, and their gaze seemed to burn his skin. The flesh of the humanoid thing holding him was gray and rock like, full of cracks and crevasses that made the face looked carved from old, hard stone. The sort of hidden stone you trip over in the middle of the day and then need stitches because it cut you so deeply.

"You are sure this boy is the one I need?" the creature said in a voice totally at odds with the nails-on-a-chalk-board tone Bart was expecting. It sounded smooth, cultured even. Not rocky at all.

G. Gordon Godfrey came into view beside the thing's shoulder. He nodded, one eye narrowed as he looked at Bart. The small voice in the back of Bart's head wanted him to run, but he couldn't. He couldn't make anything work. His shirt stuck to his body as he sweat and it rubbed painfully when the creature twisted its massive wrist to get a better look at Bart. Its eyes were so close that Bart had to shut his own for fear of burning them.

"Darkseid, boy. Not creature," the rock guy-monster-with-a-name, Darkseid said. His voice made Bart's bones vibrate.

He wanted to go home. Time to tap out of this. Monsters weren't what he signed up for. Maybe after a good sleep, but not now. Now he wanted Grandpa Barry or Grandma Iris or Artemis. Someone other than these guys.

"I feel power in this child. Human, is he not?"

"Yes, my lord. I felt it the moment I met the boy. Bart, tell our master who you are," Godfrey said. His words echoed with a painful shout inside Bart's head, like when M'gann use her mind link only a hundred times more invasive. The voice was in his blood even.

"Now, Bart."

Bart shook his head. It took a lot of effort, but he could do that much. Godfrey's voice was screaming in his mind and it hurt, like a thousand bee stings in his brain, but this was bad and Bart might not know who Darkseid was but he could tell a threat when he saw one.

He took a deep breath and moved.

Each molecule in his body vibrated, hitting speeds that made them intangible, shifted them out of reach and he fell to the ground with a hard plop. Darkseid gave no indication that he'd felt Bart vibrate himself right through his rock hands, but that was fine. All Bart had to do now was run, and he was good at that.

"STOP," Godfrey commanded.

He was half a foot away from Godfrey and Darkseid before Bart's legs seized, his muscles cramped, and no matter how hard he tried he could not get one foot to lift up in front of the other. He couldn't move.

"Come here."

Bart turned, body jerking and shaking uncontrollably as he told his body to stop and Godfrey told it to move. Bart's feet walked him back in front of Darkseid. He didn't even reach the guy's chest. He was small, he knew that, but Darkseid was huge.

"Interesting that he should be able to fight against your control at all, Godfrey," Darkseid said, but it sounded less like it was interesting and more like it was annoying.

Godfrey bowed deep. "I believe the Martians may have something to do with that. The girl managed to shield the minds of her teammates from my influence when they were in my presence and could hear my actually voice. This one, however," and here Godfrey reached out to tilt Bart's face up and stroke his cheek," this one came the moment I called."

"Will the other humans? You've been on that world and in that dimension long enough. Have you gained me the willing subjects Savage promised?" Darkseid asked, looking down at Bart.

Bart was going to be sick again. He was going to throw up and vomiting three times in one day on someone's feet would definitely be a record, mostly because Darkseid didn't look like the type to allow someone to vomit on his feet and live. Bart wasn't going to live through this, that much was clear. He understood the game, had seen enough Big Bads in his day to know when fight or flight had been reduced to flight and he couldn't flee now, so all he could do was fight and that was going to get Bart killed.

"Do they all weep, as this one weeps?" Darksied wiped a finger underneath Bart's eye, a finger almost as thick as Bart's arms and even Blue Beatle from the feature hadn't been this terrifying. He wasn't crying, or, if he was, Bart didn't know when he's started.

Darkseid's touch burnt.

"Yes, unfortunately. They do tend to weep, but the boy will serve perfectly as the portal. He's body is made up of energy that hasn't been made yet, it doesn't exist, so it can be used to limitless potential. And yet, he is not overbalancing the energy of this world either."

"A time traveler," Darkseid said with a nod.

He crouched down, brought himself to eye level with Bart and being so close to him burnt. It was hard to breath, so hard to breath and the ground was starting to sear the bottoms of Bart's feet because he didn't have shoes on.

"You are being given a great honor, little human. You will be the key that opens the lock keeping me here. You will be the bringer of Apokolips. Be comforted knowing you are the one who will die for this honor."


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry for how long this chapter took! This is the longest chapter so far, and it's more or less the beginning of the end here. Hope you all enjoy!

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One of the nice things about Gotham city was the lack of magic involved in its mayhem. Yes, there were crazed plants, laughing gas that killed, nightmare inducing smoke, crazy violence, death and destruction, but it was all human death and destruction. It was all the sort of things that went bump in the night because there was actually someone there making them go bump, someone human and vulnerable to things like, say, a bullet. Jason might not be able to cut the evil out of Gotham but he could shoot at it and watch it bleed.

Things were a little bit different when he played with the big League members. With Wonder Women it felt like mythology got board at some point and decided to try and kill people. Hell, once Jason saw her punch a harpy in the face. An actually, real life, head-of-a-woman-body-of-a-bird—watch out for the razor sharp talons—harpy. His bullets didn't do jack shit against a harpy.

With Green Lantern it was aliens. Aliens all the time. Jason had no idea how so many aliens could be causing so many problems around Earth, but he was never really one to follow politics. Intergalactic politics were even less interesting then the stuff on Earth, they just tended to come with larger ramification.

It wasn't so bad rolling with Starfire. She was still new to the planet, still getting her footing and learning the ropes. The first time he and Dick met Starfire was at the tower. Green Lantern and Superman had introduced her, Green Lantern slipping out of some guttural, deeply unusual sounding language before saying, "Red Hood, Batman, this is Starfire." And then Starfire kind of pounced on Dick in his little Batman suit, locked lips and kissed him so thoroughly Jason almost felt jealous. Dick just kind of stood there, hands half way between pulling her closer and pushing her away, before Starfire moved back and started chattering away in English. Perfect, if slightly accented, English.

It was probably one of the only interactions with alien craziness that Jason was okay with. Starfire kissed to acquire language and Dick seemed like the one in charge, so she figured he'd have the best handle on language and Jason had a big red mask covering his face. He liked Starfire, liked her enough to want to know her real name and take her out to baseball games or something. She seemed the sort to find a bunch of guys hitting balls and running in circles funny. Roy ("It's Arsenal now, stop calling me Speedy.") would get a kick out of it too, but he was off in London at the moment looking into something with the League of Shadows.

And all of this had next to nothing to do with the problem at hand, which was a massive fire-breathing dog-bear things that ignored full on punches from Starfire like they were nothing and melted things with a touch, except for the fact that the dog-bear thing was alien. It melted things like the ground of the Watchtower. Which was in space. Which was bad. It was moments like this that Jason really hated magic and mayhem outside of Gotham. At least his city had the decency to do cataclysmic problems the right way.

"Wonder Woman, get away from the creature," Green Lantern shouted. He leaped up over the heads of the others in the room and held his ring hand out.

Wonder Woman gave her lasso a shake to dislodge it from the creature's neck and lunged to the left. As soon as there was nothing holding it back anymore the dog-bear thing made a grab for Flash with its molten claws. Flash darted backwards as a wall of green light slammed into the creature. The light circled all sound the dog-bear, slipped right under its feet and pulled it up off the melting ground, but it didn't look like the light was going to hold for very long.

Green Lantern made a pained sound in the back of his throat, one that barely managed to slip past his clenched teeth. "Whatever this thing is, it's burning the light was well," he said.

"It's a creature from Apokolips. One that shouldn't be able to survive in the cooler climates of Earth," Superman said. He moved closer to the green light, watching as the creature raved inside its prison.

"How do we kill it?" Green Arrow asked. He still had an arrow notched in his bow and looked jumpy.

Superman frowned. "I just pulled the one that attacked me apart when I fount Darkseid in the past, but it was in the heat of the moment. The thing was trying to get back to Metropolis and it was trying to hunt down Lois Lane."

"If it helps, it was going to eat me when I was in the Speed Force," Wally piped up from the back of the room.

He had one hand rubbing up and down the burnt side of his suit and looked a little pale, but over all fine. Which was good, because Baby Dick from the other dimension would have been pissed if anything happened to his best friend, but also kind of sucked because it meant the portal hadn't worked.

"Did you end up on Apokolips or something?" Flash asked, suddenly right beside his younger self. Jason watched him hover, clearly wanting to inspect the injury likely hidden under the charred suit, but unwilling to push too hard to get what he wanted. "I told you to just follow the impulse, did it not take you back to your world?"

"No, it worked just fine. But this thing was waiting for me. I couldn't tell if it was in the Speed Force with me or if it jumped in when I was about to get back to my world, but it was definitely closer to my home then it was to here," Wally assured. He batted Flash's hand away from his side with a sour look.

"Need to make up our minds about this thing people," Lantern hissed. There was sweat on his brow.

"If you can't kill it, I will," Wonder Woman said with brisk efficiency. She'd looped her lasso up and strapped it back to her hip so that her hands were now free to pull her sword out of its sheath.

"We might not have to do anything at all. Look, I think it's…melting," Dick muttered. And it was true. The dog-bear thing was still lashing out at the light surrounding it, but with each swipe of its massive paw more and more of the burning flesh dropped off to pool on the bottom of the bubble. Bones were exposed, and the bones looked like they were on fire as well. The swipes were getting less powerful, but Green Lantern still seemed to feel the heat from the creature's touch.

Dick reached up and pressed a finger onto of his tall bat ears that Jason found really ridicules looking and always had, before continuing, "Cyborg, you're getting all of this, right?"

The response was immediate and over the room's loudspeakers, "Yeah, I'm getting it. Working on redirecting power to your location because the new house guest burnt through some of the wiring in the floor. Or melted it, I can't tell from the video feed."

"Burnt through," Green Arrow said. He notched his arrow and crossed his arms over his chest. Jason understood how he felt. It was daunting, hanging with these people sometimes.

"I need you to find something that can contain extreme heat. Maybe the containment pod that Starfire was in when Green Lantern found her would work. We need something this creature's skin can't melt."

"Gottcha, I'll be right there." And then the intercom clicked off.

Cyborg was true to his word and in the room with a large, person sized cylindrical container in less than five minutes. He set it down on a non-burnt patch of ground and gestured for Green Lantern to deposit the now only slightly thrashing, mostly bone creature into the container with the rest of the soupy flesh gathered at the bottom of the bubble. Green Lantern gave a sigh of relief when the containment unit doors slid closed and all the creature could show for it was a solid thump on the other side of the metal.

Not a metal from Earth either, if Jason had the story right about Starfire's first day on the job. They could still see the creature through the paneling on the front of the containment pod, but there was no more thrashing, no more mad attempts to break free. With one last swipe at the walls of the container, the skin along the creature's muscles ripped off and the creature fell in lump to the ground.

"That was totally anticlimactic," Wally said. He hobbled his way over to stand beside Jason and frown down at the dog-bear thing's bones. "That mean its dead now?"

Jason shrugged. Superman squinted his eyes and cocked his head to the side before giving a sigh of relief. "Yes, it's dead now. It wouldn't have been able to survive here for very long anyway."

"Oh really? You know a lot about this thing," Green Arrow said. He kicked the side of the container and got a nasty look from Cyborg for his efforts.

Yup, this team was sure to last.

Not.

It might have worked out for the other Bruce and his counterparts, but Jason was really starting to feel like no one in the room other then Dick, Wally, Starfire and himself knew how to work well as a team. Cyborg was good most of the time, but for some reason Green Arrow tended to get under his skin. If not for the fact that there were a bunch of kids out there in the world with capes and masks looking to the League to set an example, Jason would have split a long time ago.

There was a kid in Gotham, young, but not as young as Damian, who liked to creep around and take photos of the Bats whenever he got the chance. A Tim or a Tod Something-or-other. Jason gave it another three months before the kid tried out his hands at wearing a mask.

Support groups were important, was the point.

"I know more then you because I've encountered this threat before. It was long before the League was formed. I managed to keep Darkseid off this world, but in the fight he tried to use some sort of teleportation device. He said he wanted to bring his whole planet, all of Apokolips, to Earth. I broke the teleportation device. In the chaos that followed I thought…I thought he might have died," Superman admitted finally. He sounded less happy about having assumed he killed a crazy megalomaniac with genocidal tendencies then he did about finding out he hadn't killed a crazy megalomaniac with genocidal tendencies.

Aliens were weird.

"So you simply broke his toy and then this Darkseid person left the aria of Earth?" Starfire asked. She was on the other side of the room, arms crossed and shoulders stiff. Her focus was on Superman, but her eyes kept darting to the containment unit and then away. Bad memories.

Superman shook his head. One large hand ran through his hair and when he let them drop back down to his sides the perfect waves and curls were still there. Superman had better hair than Dick. That, more than anything else, would have clued Jason into his extraterrestrial origins, because it wasn't humanly possible for a guy to have better hair than Dick Grayson.  
"No. Rather than using the machine to transport himself and the planet to Earth, the devices looked like it opened some sort of rift in space. It sucked the whole of Apokolips up and away. I tried to help, but Darkseid was more interested in fighting than saving his world. In the end, he was swallowed by the light as well. You must have seen it," Superman added, turning to look at Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Flash, Dick and then Jason himself. "The light was so bright it lit up the sky. It spiked near Gotham, but the previous Batman didn't respond when I asked him if anything odd happened in the city because of it."

The air caught in Jason's lungs on the inhale and he coughed. Dick looked as concerned and curious as he was able to with the cowl on. A hand slapped down on Jason's shoulder and squeezed. He didn't need to look to know it was Wally's hand, the kid was twitching so fast it felt like an earthquake with the epicenter at Jason's joints.

"How long ago was your fight with Darkseid?" Jason asked. His voice sounded like he was speaking in front of a fan because of Wally's agitated movements.

"A little more than five years ago now," said Superman.

"I remember the lights in the sky. I didn't realize that was you," Wonder Woman muttered.

"It was what convinced me we should have some communication going on. Needed to know what the crazy light show was, after all," Green Arrow grumbled.

Jason ignored them. He stared across the room at Dick, who stared back. He couldn't see Dick's face, but the stiffness of his posture, the slack jaw, the flexed fingers, all of it spoke of surprise and comprehension. Dick got it, same as the Wally standing next to Jason.

"That guy's the reason I got sucked into the other dimension to begin with." Jason laughed. Clapped a hand to his mask and shook his head. "You have got to be kidding me. Five years I've wondered how I got sent there, and the whole time it was because you and this Darkseid guy had a fight."

"What are you talking about?" Cyborg asked.

"Darkseid's teleportation thing. When Superman broke it and it malfunctioned, it somehow snatched Jason up and tossed him into my reality. Which is where this dog-bear thing was lurking, and I'm here in your reality now and all of this is really suspicious," Wally said. He stalked back and forth, hand against his chin, obviously deep in thought. Jason would have loved to help, would have thrown out ideas left and right if he could, but right now all he could think about was how totally his life had changed because this Darkseid guy had a tantrum. Changed for the better, sure, but still changed. Who was to say someone else hadn't been zapped way to another dimension as well?  
"If Darkseid isn't dead, which he must not be to be sending these things out after people, then that means he's active now after five years. So the question is, why now? Where is Darkseid to be making all this trouble and what's his end game?"

"I don't know," Superman said, floundering a little. Green Lantern placed a hand on his very wide shoulder, but guilt was still there, bright and clear in Superman's big blue eyes. It was really his most redeeming quality, the guilt, because at least than Jason could find something flawed in an otherwise perfect person. Who he wasn't jealous of at all, or angry with for changing his life completely after punching a bad guy.

Cyborg shuffled around Jason and Wally, who'd finally taken his hand off Jason's arm. There was too much camaraderie going around, made Jason's eyes itch. "I bet I can find out," Cyborg said as he peered down into the containment unit. He twisted, still leaning over the unit, to catch Flash's eye. "I'm going to need your help thought. And yours as well," he added, looking at Wally.

Both nodded.

"I'm going to have you run again, Wally, and this time I'm going to calibrate the pull to the energy signature this thing was putting off when it came out of the Speed Force with you. It registered on my monitors seconds before you both appeared in the room."

Wally frowned. He fingered the burned edges of his suit and asked, "Are we expecting me to get roasted by another one of these things?"

"It's possible that there are more wherever this thing came from, which is where Flash comes in. He's going to be running with you, so that if anything happens he can act as back up and get you both out of there as fast as possible. He knows the Speed Force better than you do, he should be able to help. Right, Flash?"

"I too wish to come. I think it would be best to have someone strong, as well as fast, along," Starfire said. "If this trip might take them to Darkseid, additional support would be a good idea, yes friends?"  
"Field Trip, everyone pick a buddy," Jason said, but he tried to make it sound encouraging because he was going to be honest, if there were more of the fire monsters of doom hanging out in the Speed Force, it was a good idea to take Starfire along…Or Wonder Woman. Hell, Superman, if Big Blue wanted to tag along.

"What can we do to help with the process?" Dick was in Batman mode, which was always odd to see. He would never have quite the same severity to the downwards turn of his lips, but for someone who hadn't grown up around the original it was powerful enough. Cyborg looked intimidated at the very least.

"We have to fix the treadmill, get it recalibrated, and ready to run. If Starfire is actually going to go then we need to get two treadmills set up; one for Flash and one for Wally. I'm fairly certain that, with the two of them running, I should be able to hook up a drag line to pull Star through as well, but that's new territory. I've never tried anything like this before," Cyborg admitted, his voice tapering off at the end.

Dick gave a crooked grin. "Always a good moment for firsts."

And that was another thing about running with the big boys and girls that no one told Jason about. There was a lot of down time, a lot of trial and error, or planning and strategy, before they actually did anything. It was nice sometimes, but most of the time all he could think about was how much faster the whole process went when Jason was the only one Jason had to answer to. He wanted to go stop a mob boss down in the Narrows? Good plan, time to go. He needed to do some undercover work? Cool, go get a wig. Even the actual investigative stuff that Bruce and Dick loved so much wasn't so bad when Jason was the one doing the investigating because it was something that required his attention.

Jason wasn't stupid, not by any means, but he sure as hell wasn't going to know how to calibrate a bunch of normal looking treadmills into portals with dimension crossing abilities. So he stood off to the side, let the ones with the technical knowhow do their thing. Wonder Women, Green Arrow, and Green Lantern were talking strategy and statistics about Darkseid, which was useful and something he should be in on, but not right now. Instead, Jason leaning up against the back wall, Wally beside him, as Flash, Starfire and Cyborg talked shop.

"You don't want to get in on the geek out session?" Jason asked, tipping his head towards the cluster around the treadmill and containment unit.

Wally rolled his eyes behind his mask. It wasn't burnt, which was good. The thought of that dog-bear thing getting close enough to the kid's face to burn the mask was unpleasant.

"There's no point. I don't know what they did to get the treadmill going in the first place and having them stop and explain things to me would take too long. Besides, Starfire's technology is involved in this was well, right? I definitely don't know anything about what she'd be working with."

"To be fair, Starfire isn't all that up to date on Tamaranian technology either. Cyborg mostly reverse engineered from her gadgets."

"Either way, I'm just going to wait, try to figure this Darkseid thing out. I'm worried. What if he's done something to my dimension while I've been away?"

Now it was Jason's turn to shrug. His first instinct was to tell Wally not to stress, he'd been gone for about a three weeks, a month at best, so there shouldn't have been too much to worry about, but Jason knew enough about the world now to realize that was going to be an empty consolation. Wally could have been gone over night and it wouldn't have made that much of a difference if someone with enough juice to give Superman a run for his money wanted to cause havoc.

"There are plenty of people back in your dimension who'll stop him if Darkseid tries anything," Jason said instead. Still a lie, but at least this one was closer to the truth then not.

For a moment Wally was quiet. He shifted from foot to foot, watching the tinkering and the containment unit before glancing up at Jason and then running through the whole process again. He pursed his lips and then taped his fingers in agitation against the wall for almost five minutes before Jason slapped a hand down on top of the jittering fingers.

"What is it?"

Wally opened his mouth, got half way through a protest, and then his shoulders sagged. "It's just…I thought I saw Bart in the Speed Force for a second. I thought he might have seen me too."

"That's interesting. Who's Bart?" Jason didn't quite manage to keep the sarcasm out of his voice this time.

"My cousin. He looked, I don't know, scared. He looked scared and I'm concerned. What if he got attacked by one of the Apokolips creatures too?"

Ah, well, that made sense. Reasonable to be concerned about someone getting eaten by a dog-bear thing but still not really something Wally could do much about until the treadmills were all situated.

"Nothing you can do right now. Just take a deep breath and be ready when the time comes."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

"Of course I am," Jason laughed. "I'm always right."

Wally's eyes flickered up to him and then very pointedly away before he nodded.

Jason sighed. He knew what this was about, or at least has his suspicions. Wally was jumpy and prone to staring since the moment he woke up. Part of that was understandable, what else would a person do when confronted with Dick as Batman, Damien as Robin? That deserved some staring, but there were enough hints for Jason to be sure that it wasn't the fact that he was older than Wally that earned the gawking. It was because he was alive.

Wally's Jason wasn't, plain and simple.

There were just some things even Bruce couldn't change, it seemed.

"You ever going to get over the me not being dead thing?" Jason asked. He let his head flop against the back wall and kept his voice low. It wouldn't stop a good half of the people in the room if they really wanted to eavesdrop, but most everyone seemed distracted.

Wally flinched. "I'm that obvious, huh?"

"You pretty much told me I was dead this morning. And that first morning Batman told you he was going to ask the League for help."

"Touché."

"So. How did it happen?"

"Are you really sure you want to know?" Wally asked. He turned to face Jason directly. It was a mark of how much time had passed since he'd last seen this version of Wally that Jason could catch the hints of the man he would become in the set of Wally's chin, the frankness of his gaze. The Wally Jason knew, the Wally from this time over in the Flash suit, was a good man. The Wally standing in front of him all in yellow and orange was well on his way to becoming that man.

"I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't."

"It was an accident. Jason—our Jason—wasn't even supposed to be on that mission. He wasn't even officially on the team yet, still in training with the other rookies. It was supposed to be a surveillance mission. Di—Robin, the original, was still wearing the persona, and—" Wally glanced at the cluster of Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Green Lantern before stepping closer and dropping his voice more. Jason flirted with the idea of telling him it didn't matter, Jason was a common enough name that he didn't mind these guys knowing it as long as last names staid off the record.

"—our Jason took his costume and went on the mission. Jason was really good at disguises, he used to make a game out of pretending to be Robin. I mean, you've always been taller than he was," Wally added, gesturing with a subtle point of his finger towards Dick.

"He was paired up with two of Aquaman's protégés. The mark was right on the water and they were new to the team, people Kaldur used to train with. You remember Kaldur?"

Jason nodded. "Fish boy, I remember. Go on."

Wally's eyes dropped down towards his feet. He said nothing for a handful of long, long heart beats, before looking up at Jason once more. "It was a set up. But the time Di-Robin realized what Jason had done and got there, it was too late. Two out of the three on the squad didn't walk away from that mission, and the third never came back to active duty."

"How."

"Tempest said he, Jason, and Aquagirl were ambushed. They worked for the Light, the guys that caught them. It was a drop off of some new kind of technology and they didn't want us to know about it. No one had a chance to call for back up. When we got there—when we got there it looked like they went down swinging."

So, it was his own fault again. Ran off and didn't listen to the ones in charge, thought he was ready for the big leagues, just like last time. Nice to know certain character flaws never changed. Like the self-destructive need to know how he died. Jason could have gone a long— kind of happy—life not knowing how another version of himself bit the big one, but instead he had to rub slat in the wound and know.

"Any crowbars involved?"

Wally's nose scrunched and his brows rose behind the mask. "No, no crowbars."

"How'd you-know-who and Batman take it?"

Wally shook his head. "Batman was—Batman about it. Sad, moody, generally grieving, but Robin? It hit him hard. Wouldn't put the suit back on again after that. Buried Jason in it. He insisted that Jason be remembered as a Robin too, and he came up with a new name for himself. It's the one he's sporting now; Nightwing."

"Yeah. Same name for his rebellious stage here," Jason said. He laughed, but didn't really find anything that funny. No matter what he did, he was always going to screw up Dick's life somehow. He was doing better with Dick now, a lot better than before the impromptu dimension hopping, but it was a long road full of angry fights and late night heart-to-hearts, and that was with him still alive. It was only a matter of time before Jason messed up Damien as well, and the kid already had a head start in the emotional trauma department.

"I'm sorry. I feel like I've been the bearer of bad news since the day I got here," Wally said.

"Shit happens, it's not your fault," Jason assured.

A clang came from over near the treadmills. Jason pushed away from the wall and ambled his way closer. It had nothing to do with wanting to have a bit of breathing room between himself and Wally, because Wally hadn't done anything wrong, but it did have a lot to do with not wanting to stay still. Jason was a man of movement, of action, and the last hour or so had been a lot of standing around waiting for other people to do things. Being part of a team was hard.

"How's it looking, Einstein?" he asked, leaning in between Cyborg and Flash's shoulders.

"Some of the wiring for the treadmill was melted as well. We're going to need more," Cyborg muttered without looking away from his task.

"I can get it for you. Any wire will do?"

Cyborg looked up this time, because you always looked up when Superman was offering to be your errand boy. He gave a flustered nod and then Superman moved swiftly out of the room.

"Well, that was weird," Wally declared. He frowned in the direction of the door and then turned to shrug.

"It's guilt. He feels like this is his fault," Wonder Woman said. Jason supposed she would be the authority on the matter, considering she was the only one that officially knew who Superman was when he wasn't being a hero. She was the only one Mr. Clark Kent had willingly given his true name too, but the cave had info on all of the people currently in the room, courtesy of Bruce's paranoia.

Dick might not have read the background reports on his new team members, but Jason sure as hell had. One of them needed to be prepared if things went south, because thing always went south.

Flash stiffened beside Jason, Wally drawing in a hissed breath and froze half a step away from Dick. Jason watched as if in slow motion as the color drained from Wally's face. Starfire and Cyborg reached out, her fingers resting on Wally's arm, his snaking in front of Jason to tap Flash's elbow. The cold metal of Cyborg's prosthetics brushed against Jason's shirt. And then the air in the center of the circle their cluster formed split down the center, unraveled and burst apart. Heat and light shot out, warming the metal of Jason's helmet. Dick shouted, reeled forwards, slipped into the light and Jason flung himself over Cyberg's arm to grab Dick's hand before it vanished into the rift, but then he felt the pull too, something gravitational. There was yelling, the Flash of Wonder Woman's golden lasso, the blaze of Starfire's red hair as she tugged with all her strength, but it didn't matter—

The heat swallowed Jason whole—

And spat him out on warm, red dirt.

Thuds sounded around him, Cyborg, Starfire, Flash and Wally all slamming to the ground in a cluttered tangle of limbs. Wally's heal banged off the top of the red helmet and Cybrog's knee dug hard into Jason's side. Dick was already up and on his feet, but he wasn't moving.

"Please, what happened?" Starfire asked, pushing herself up and lifting into the air so that she could help Wally to his feet as well.

They were in a world of red, volcanic rock. Everything was hot, the air warped with it, a strong taint of sulfur peppering each inhale. They were on a path, one obviously man made because there were sculpted, pointed rocks lining the edges of the walk way. It lead past their cluster, looked to drop straight down on either side like a cliff edge, and at the end of the walk way was a pillar made of dark ebony stone. A body was attached to the pillar, a red haired boy, held aloft by what looked from Jason's viewpoint like red hot shackles. There were people clustered around the pillar, a massively tall guy that looked part rock, someone in a suit that screamed "I'm smarmy", women in armor like Wonder Women when she got ready for a big fight, and more of the dog-bear things.

The kid screamed, another flash of light lit up the aria so that Jason had to shield his eyes from the glow. Where the hell did it come from? What was going on?

Something dropped down hard on top of him, knocking the wind out of Jason and slamming his head into the dirt. Another something crashed down by his face and Jason realized the something was a girl, dressed all in green.

The light brought more people—

The boy screamed again, the girl in green scrambled to her feet, whirling and kicking dust up against the helmet.

"BART!"

What the hell just happened?


	11. Chapter 11

Despite what some reporters might say, having Superman help her stand up was not a happy experience for Artemis. Generally it meant something had gone catastrophically wrong, she and the team almost died, and there were going to be long reaching consequences because Superman was only called in when the shit really hit the fan. Superman smiled down at her and gave a very audible sigh of relief as he reached to grab one hand and help Artemis upright. Her head swam, a sharp pain throbbing behind her ear and left shoulder.

"Are you alright? Nothing looks broken, but you got hit hard," Superman said. Conner loomed behind him, shifting from foot to foot and fiddling with his fingers. It was a nervous tic he'd picked up sometime around entering high school with M'gann and never gotten rid of, one that only surfaced when something really bothered him.

"Where's Bart?"

"We don't know yet. Flash is speaking with Batman now to try and figure that out," Conner said. He looked pale, shaken.

"What happened? Bart was fine one second and then the next he freaked out. How did he get always from us?" Because it was us, Artemis reminded herself. She and Conner were the ones that were supposed to be watching Bart, so she and Conner were the ones that screwed up. In the beginning, when Artemis first joined the team, her initial instinct was always to find blame with someone else, anyone else, because blame meant guilt and guilt met punishment. It didn't take long for Kaldur to notice the habit and train it out of her. Teams succeeded or failed as a unit, not as a collection of individuals that just happened to be in the same area at the same time.

Conner looked down at his hands in silence. He spread his fingers wide and shuttered. "He vibrated through my arms," Conner said quietly. "Bart could have killed someone doing that. It would have killed you, if you'd been the one holding him."

Artemis closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Bart was fine, and then he wasn't. Bart was scared and desperate for some reason and he did something dangerous. Luck was the only reason no one was hurt, luck and very strong Kryptonian bones. Bart would never do something like this of his own volition.

"M'gann and J'onn missed something in Bart's head. Someone made him do this. Godfrey. Godfrey made him run," Artemis said. She ignored the pulsing beat of pain in her skull.

"We need to call Aqualad and the others, let them know what happened."

"We tried. They aren't responding to our calls," Superman said.

Calm. Stay calm. Artemis could do this. This was fine, everything was fine. There were any number of reasons why the team wouldn't answer. They could be too close to the enemy to respond. They could have their radios jammed. They could be sitting around eating bon-bons and not hear the signaling. Not answering didn't mean they were hurt.

"Alright. Superboy, you and I need to find them and then go after Bart." Artemis moved to the door with purpose. Her hands weren't shaking, and if they were it wasn't from fear or anything stupid like that. She wasn't afraid. If she could disappear down the rabbit hole for almost a year playing Tigress she could handle hunting down a thirteen year old kid and her team mates. Everyone was going to be fine because she was going to make sure they were fine and god help anything that tried to change that. Godfrey better hope Jaime was wrong about him having anything to do with Bart's attack, better hope he hadn't done anything to her team, better hope Artemis remembered she wasn't really Tigress when she found him if Godfrey had hurt them.

A hand fell on her shoulder, heavy and unyielding. Conner hadn't used his strength to get her attention in a long time, before she and Wally retired, and it had startled Artemis then as much as it did now. Conner, for all his anger issues when he was younger, was incredibly careful with the breakable world around him.

"Calm down. I can hear your heart beating from here and its going nuts. M'gann and the others can take care of themselves and we'll find Bart."

Artemis twisted, mouth open and ready to say…something, probably something mean because when she got scared she plaid dirty, but the look on Conner's face stopped the tirade before it even began. Conner didn't age, not the way that she did, but every once in a while Artemis would look at him and see so much maturity, so much change from the hostile, nameless boy she used to tease and flirt with that something actually clenched inside her chest. She glanced at Superman and wondered if he saw the maturity too, wondered if he felt any regret for waiting as long as he had to love Conner like the family they were.

"Yeah. Yeah, we'll find them. But we go now, we're not waiting around, ok?" she said.

Conner nodded, cocked his head to the side and squinted. "You should put on a new uniform. The Kevlar in that one's weakened."

"I don't have another one. It doesn't matter."

"Conner's right, I can see fractures all along the suit. It's not safe," Superman said. He stud like a large, imploring Boy Scout and his pestering would have annoyed Artemis if it had come from anyone else, but from Superman it was par for the course. He worried about everyone. He and Conner both.

All she had left was the old uniform. The one that hadn't been washed since the Arctic, the one that she never wanted to put on again, not if Wally wasn't there to watch her back. It was a stupid design anyway, didn't protect her gut, not like the Tigress suit did. But Conner looked determined, and Superman looked like Superman always did when he thought he was right, and standing here waffling over whether or not to put on a piece of clothing was a waste of time they didn't have to spare.

Artemis gave a frustrated snarl, threw her hands up into the air and snapped, "Fine! Fine. I'll meet you at the zata tubes in five," and stomped away. Conner lifted his hands in an offering of peace and let her go.

The locker rooms where close to the med wing, which was the only reason Artemis was willing to take the time to change like this. That was all. They needed to move. Time was the most important factor in situations like this, the longer they waited around the colder the trail was going to get and Artemis was sick and tired of feeling the cold. It was harder to pull the suit off then she wanted to admit. There were bruises all along her arms and chest, some minor swelling near her left hip, but all in all it could have been a lot worse if not for the suit, Dick, and M'gann. She pulled the green over her head, pulled the pants up her legs, slipped her feet into the comfortable, practical shoes, and didn't want to admit to how much it felt like coming home.

Conner and Superman both were beside the zata tubes when Artemis arrived, but that wasn't so surprising. The tubes were in the main room of the Tower, and everyone still present was clustered around the computer screens. Ollie and Dinah weren't back yet, but Superman was, and that struck Artemis as odd. Barry was standing in front of the computer, deep in discussion with Batman and J'onn. They stopped speaking as Artemis drew closer, and that just made Olive and Dinah's absence even more suspicious.

Barry caught her eye and he looked pained. In the space between one blink and the next he was beside Artemis. "Are you alright? I heard about what happened. We're going to find Bart."

"Yeah, we are. I'm fine. Where are Green Arrow and Black Canary?" It came out a little more brisk then Artemis would have liked, but Barry didn't seem to notice the tone.

"Still in the Arctic. They sent Superman back because he was the fastest and radio signals weren't working that far north," Barry said. His eyes flitted along the bruises on her arms and side, but he said nothing. It was one thing Artemis always really appreciated about Barry; he cared, but he didn't push. He waited, made sure people knew he was there for them if he was needed, and then just acted…nice.

"Why did Superman need to get back here so fast?" Conner asked.

Batman and J'onn exchanged a look before nodding at Superman, who said, "There were more of the creatures in the Arctic. Just the one, but we saw something troubling. It looked like a portal was trying to open up, for just a second, and one of the creatures dug itself up out of the snow and jumped into the portal. It closed up after it, but the fact that it was there at all is concerning."

"Another one?" Conner asked at the same time Artemis gasped, "A portal?"

"I know what you're thinking, and we're going to look into it. Right now. We're going to look into it right now, but someone has to go find Bart," Barry said. His voice was quiet, consoling, totally at odds with how Artemis felt.

There was another portal opening in the Arctic, in the exact same place Wally disappeared. It couldn't be a coincidence, nothing in life was ever a coincidence. It could have been him, he could have been trying to get back. Or, it could have been a link to where ever these monster things were coming from and maybe Wally got sucked into their dimension, or world, or quantum-time-space-pocket-of-mumbo-jumbo, she didn't care, it was closer than they'd been to finding him in weeks. But if she went to investigate, who was going to go find Bart? Who was going to find the others? The creatures were strong and they were dangerous, Superman was going to go back north. J'onn should come with them to find Bart, but Barry should go north in case they needed his scientific expertise to help get Wally back. Because they were getting Wally back, they were.

Artemis clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Don't freak out. Don't let your emotions get away from you, focus. Just focus. Her eyes opened to Batman frowning at her across the room.

"The team has been out of contact for the last thirty minutes. Let the League handle whatever these things in the Arctic are, you and Superboy are to find the rest of the squad and go after Bart. Understood?"

"Understood."

Conner tried to catch her eye as Artemis stepped up to the zata platform, but Artemis ignored him. Just for the moment, just this once. She wasn't mad at Conner, or at Batman, she wasn't mad at all, not really. Artemis couldn't have explained how she felt if her life depended on it at that moment, all she knew was that the first real, tangible evidence she wasn't insane for thinking Wally might still be alive was out there, and there was nothing she could do about it right now.

The back ally she zataed into was nice, cleaner than Gotham, but Keystone City was always cheerful that way. Conner zataed in hot on her heels, and Artemis waited only long enough for him to get his bearings before striding out of the ally way. She knew where G. Gordon Godfrey lived, had looked it up as soon as the others left on their recon mission, and if they were going to get to the location fast enough they didn't have time to sit and chat. Two blocks up and three over. Not that far in reality, but it felt like a lifetime to cover right now.

"If you hold on tight, I can get us there faster." Conner gestured with a thumb to his back and Artemis rolled her eyes. Piggy-back rides were not her idea of adequate transportation, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She moved around behind Conner, secured her bow to its strap on her waist and double checked the integrity of the binding holding her quiver on, took half a second to be glad she'd brought the short sword Tigress carried, and then jumped up. Her arms locked around Conner's neck and his strong hands came up to secure her legs.

"Hold on tight," he warned, and then they were running.

It was nothing like running with Wally, because running with Wally had a weightless, breathless quality to it that nothing else ever came close to. Conner didn't have the grace or the smoothness that Wally and his cousin and uncle had when they ran, but he had more power behind each thrust of his legs. Wally was by no means devoid of strength, but Conner was like a wrecking ball barely contained.

"He'd have wanted you to help the others and find Bart, you know," Conner said after a moment of silent running.

Artemis ducked her head against the wind and said nothing.

Godfrey lived in a pleasant little slice of suburbia not quite outside the city but far enough out to allow him to have a back yard. It looked liked like a nice, safe area where nothing dire happened and people trying to kill thirteen year olds via mind control wouldn't live. The front door was wide open, but there was no car in the driveway and no sign of anyone at home. Conner let Artemis slide off his back just inside the foyer, well out of sight of anyone on the street. The last thing the team needed now was more bad press spurred on by a liar like Godfrey.

There was movement in the side of the house, down a long hallway. Artemis caught Conner's eye and nodded, allowing him to go first. The wood floors were soft and expensive, the kind that swallowed up sound when walked across, but Artemis stuck close to the walls anyway so as to minimize the likelihood of a squeaking board. Conner paused outside the first room along the hallway, one with an ugly picture of an erupting volcano hanging next to it, and squinted his eyes.

"It's them," he said with no further preamble before shoving the door open and bounding forward.

Artemis followed, itching to draw an arrow. She wanted something out and at the ready to stab people with too many G's in their name if the occasion should arise. Instead she slipped through the door and winced. There had been a fight in this room. The book case on the right was cracked in half, books and knickknack on the floor. On the left wall was a person sized dent in the wood paneling. Kaldur was on his feet near the demolished book case, and Artemis could see the beginnings of a bruise on his chin from where she stood. Jaime was in full Blue Beetle suit, sitting on the ground next to M'gann. Artemis wouldn't have thought it possible for green skin to look pail and pasty, but M'gann's certainly did. Dick's sunglasses were smashed on the floor, his civvies half torn to reveal his suit underneath and he didn't seem to care. Instead he knelt, helping M'gann stay upright and looked up only when he heard Conner come barreling into the room.

"We were right about Godfrey. Definitely in on something big," Dick said, and he sounded grim.

"Did you see Bart?"

Jaime nodded to his knees. Bad sign, definitely a bad sign. Deep breaths.

"What happened?" Conner knelt beside M'gann. She smiled at him, but the expression was weak.

"I do not know if Godfrey was expecting us, but he came prepared for a confrontation. He attempted to plant suggestions into our minds in order to make us believe we were in enough pain to die. I fear that he might have succeeded in causing serious damage had M'gann not protected us," Kaldur said, quick, efficient, and kind above all.

He and Artemis exchanged a glance. Both were aware of how deeply disturbed by her actions M'gann was, how truly she regretted harming Kaldur the way that she had, and both were very aware of the fact that Kaldur's praise was strategic. There was no doubt that he was right, and M'gann did help safeguard their minds—Kaldur did not heap false praise on anyone, honesty was a big deal to him when not undercover—but the wording was intentional.

"Bart showed up and grabbed this weird remote control looking thing for Godfrey and then they both disappeared," Jaime muttered.

Don't panic. Don't panic. Bart was going to be alright. He'd only been gone forty minutes so far, they would find him. How far cold they get in an hour?

Far, if Bart was running.

"Breath," Dick instructed. Sometimes Artemis forgot how blue his eyes were.

"What did the remote control thing look like? Did Bart run them both out of here or did the remote do something?" Artemis could be clinical about this. It was nothing like the Arctic. She hadn't turned around to find Bart vanished the way she had with Wally, this wasn't voluntary. She was going to get Bart back in one piece and no one else was going to die or vanish or cease or whatever the hell someone wanted to call disappearing from her life. It wasn't going to happen.

M'gann straightened up more fully. It looked like she might be sick for a moment before M'gann closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again with resolve lingering in the corners of her thinly pressed lips. "I can show you, both of you, if you'll let me."

Always, Artemis thought as loud as she could. Conner nodded. M'gann smiled. It was small, heartfelt, and strong. She raised her hands and brushed her fingers against Artemis and Conner's foreheads. Instantly the room vanished. Artemis found herself looking down at a rectangular machine that kind of reminded her of Sphere in a weird way. It had something to do with how the light reflected off of the red metal. There were bright yellow lines like a computer chip running across the face of the machine and it was thick looking, but aside from that the image meant nothing to Artemis.

"I've seen that before!" Conner gasped.

The room flickered back into existence. M'gann blinked, watching Conner in slight surprise. Kaldur moved closer to kneel down beside Dick, his bruised jaw tight with the same shows of stress his used to have on the sub with Manta. Same show, different trigger. Jaime lunged forward, his face a scant breath away from Conner's in his excitement.

"You know what that is?" he practically crowed. It must be nice to be that optimistic.

Conner shook his head. "No, I have no idea what it is. But I've seen one of those before, when the Forever People were here. The guy we were fighting had one of those, and it got smashed during the scuffle."

"That doesn't really help us much," Jaime said, deflating almost as quickly as he'd grown excited. He scrunched his shoulders, looked at something that definitely wasn't there over his shoulder and snapped, "They are too helping. Calm down, hermano."

Dick frowned. "I saw Asami, that girl who helped break you out of the Reach prison, with one as well. Or, at the very least, with something that looked similar. If we can figure out where she got it from maybe we can figure out how to track down Bart."

Jaime perked up again. The suit peeled away from his face so that the look of guilt he wore was on full display. Artemis narrowed her eyes. He noticed the look and shifted awkwardly. "I…um…I know where she got the machine from."

"How do you know?" Kaldur asked. It would never cease to amaze Artemis how level his voice could sound when he wanted it to. That was what made Kaldur so good when they were undercover. With such a calm, unflappable demeanor it was hard to imagine him having a duplicitous bone in his body.

"Tye told me. He called after things settled down with the Reach. He told me that he and the others weren't going to work with us, but they weren't going to work with their 'benefactor' either because they found out it was Lex Luthor and he was 'terrible'."

"'Terrible?'" M'gann repeated, nonplussed.

Jaime nodded, "Terrible." And then, "That was not a loss of a tactical advantage! They needed to know!"

"Why didn't you tell us about Luthor's involvement as soon as you knew about it?" Conner growled.

Jaime's shoulders scrunched, eyes flickering to Conner's face and then down to the ground again. "I didn't want to get Tye and them in trouble. They didn't know it was Luthor helping them at first, and then when they did they stopped working with him."

"He's dangerous! He could have—"

"It doesn't matter now," Kaldur said sharply, cutting Conner's retort off before it could get too angry. "Now we go to Luthor and see if he can help us find our friend."

They waited long enough for Dick to change from his civvies into the Nightwing suit and that was it. No one questioned the fact that he wore the suit underneath his clothing anymore. Artemis caught Jaime eyeing Dick as he put his mask on and made a mental note to check with him after this was all over about how often he watched celebrity news shows. Richard Grayson wasn't normally one to generate tabloid information, but Bruce Wayne was and nothing pleased the news more than bringing up the adoptive children Bruce Wayne had whenever he did something noteworthy. If Jaime recognized Dick he was going to put two and two together eventually and he needed to be reminded about discretion. Preferably from her and not Batman.

It took longer than Artemis would have liked to get them all back to the zata platform, and more time then she would have liked from them all to arrive in Metropolis. Dick had his holographic computer out and he typed furiously at it, ignoring everyone else in his efforts. Less than five minutes after the furious typing began, Dick clicked his tongue and grinned the satisfied, blinding smirk he used to when he was younger and hacked motions sensors for fun.

"I have Lex Luthor's schedule. Looks like he's taking an afternoon coffee break in his office right about now," he said smugly.

Artemis and Conner snorted skeptically, glanced at each other, and shared a smile. Luthor having a coffee break from evil and manipulation was as likely as Superman having a break from kryptonite allergies.

They entered the Luthor Corp building from the roof. Security was minimal to non-existent there, which was odd but not entirely unheard of. M'gann set up a link between them all so that their radios wouldn't trigger any alarms, and because something was still jamming half their signals. There was no one in the stairwell leading down from the roof, and only one security camera at each floor landing that Dick fed a continuous loop of empty stairwell to. No one stopped them from creeping onto the executive floor, and the secretary at the front desk walked away from her post to deliver mail before anyone had to figure out how to sneak past her. Nothing stood between them and the crisp, clean frosted glass doors of Lex Luthor's office.

That was way too easy, right? We shouldn't have been able to sneak in here so fast, Jaime thought.

Easy means he's expecting us, which means this is either a trap or a negotiation, Artemis replied. She pushed open the emergency escape door leading out of the stairwell and marched across the room to Lex Luthor's office, Conner at her side. Jaime slipped out after, M'gann and Dick following close behind and Kaldur guarding their rear. The glass doors were unlocked and Artemis told herself that she wasn't going to do anything rash. Lex Luthor was an opportunistic slime ball, but he wasn't the one that got Wally hurt. The Reach did that, and the Reach paid for it. As long as Lex wasn't directly responsible for any harm coming to Bart, Artemis could control herself. If he was, she made no promises about his physical well-being.

The office was Spartan and aggressively modern, decorated in clean lines of chrome and glass. Large windows took up most of the wall, with book cases full of thick volumes and gray flower vases covering what the windows did not. A minimalist desk sat in front of the wide windows. A women stud and a man sat behind the desk, facing the door.

Lex Luthor spread his arms wide and smiled at the team as they entered. Mercy Graves raised her arm, ready to deploy her modifications to defend if need be, but so far her hand continued looking like a hand and not like a mini bazooka.

"Good afternoon, welcome," Lex said as he pushed away from his desk.

He looks too happy, Conner thought. There was a sour tinge to his mental voice.

Definitely. I'm guessing trap, stay whelmed and ready to act, Dick advised.

Luthor stepped out from behind his desk, Mercy his constant shadow. Now that he was away from the desk Artemis could see three sleek drawers just waiting to be investigated. She thought as much along the mental link, and Kaldur sent along his affirmation. Interrogate Luthor about the machine and its possible ties to the Forever People, see what he knew about Godfrey, and make sure he wasn't hiding anything from them. Easy as pie.

"Conner, so nice to see you. I've missed our little talks." Luthor's voice was like an oil spill. It sprung from his mouth and leaked out all over the room until it made the listener want to choke.

"What do you know about G. Gordon Godfrey," demanded Connor, ignoring the obvious bate.

Artemis circled wide to the right, Dick to the left. His goal was the computer, hers the three little draws and any clues either could scrounge up. Mercy tracked their movements with her eyes, never turning her head away from Lex or lowering her arm from its fixed location on Kaldur. Tactically, it made sense to take out the leader and she and Luthor had to know that Kaldur was the one that called the big plays now that he was back, but Conner was between Kaldur and any bullet Mercy might try to fire. Which meant she'd never hit her target. She and Luthor had to know that too, they weren't stupid.

The top draw was locked. So was the second.

"Oh, no. Please, don't search my desk. It can obviously hide so much from you all considering it's mostly made of clear glass," Luthor said drolly. He hadn't turned away from Conner yet, which made Artemis want to shoot him full of arrows.

She glanced at Dick, busy connecting a line from his glove into one of the USB ports on the computer. Something gave a soft chime when the cord was connected, and at the sound Luthor turned away from Conner to frown at Dick.

"There's no need to go through my files to find what you're looking for. I didn't exactly hide it."

"So you know what we are looking for then, do you, Mr. Luthor?"Kaldur asked softly.

Lex spent a moment more glaring at Dick, who grinned and continued doing whatever the hell it was he did with computers, before turning back to Kaldur. Luthor looked slightly ruffled.

"Of course I do. I expected you days ago, but you children took far longer to put two and two together then I expected."

Artemis pulled open the third draw and felt her stomach swoop down to her knees before jumping up to crowd her lungs. There was the machine, or another version of the machine, from Godfrey's office sitting snug and sound in the bottom draw of Lex Luthor's desk.

He has one too, Artemis thought. She pulled the machine out of the draw and held it up just to be sure. M'gann's lips pressed tightly together in anger.

That's definitely the same kind of machine that Godfrey had. They must be working together in some way.

Conner reached forward, grabbed the lapels of Lex Luthor's blazer and pulled him up off of his feet to snarl, "If you get Impulse hurt for another one of your stupid tricks—"

Mercy lunged forward as well. She dug the muzzle of her transformed arm up under Conner's chin and hissed, "Let go."

Jaime's plasma cannon pressed against her ribs. "I suggest you step away."

Well, that went well, Dick muttered.

"Everyone, just calm down. We do not wish to harm anyone here. On the contrary, we are trying to help a friend. Tell us what we need to know in order to do so and we will leave," Kaldur said. He held his hands up so that everyone could see his empty grip.

Conner, put him down. M'gann placed a tentative hand on Conner's shoulder. For a long moment it looked like the standoff would continue, and then Conner released his grip. Luthor fell lightly back to his feet and straightened out his jacket. Mercy waited just long enough to be sure no one else was going to take a shot at Lex before stepping back from Conner and away from Jaime's weapon.

"Now, if we're all ready to speak like adults here. I can explain to you why I have that little bit of curio and you can all get on your way," Luthor said.

"Why do you have this?" Artemis moved away from the desk, closer to the group clustered around Luthor and Mercy. She made sure to keep well out of arm's reach of either, but if they needed to beat a fast retreat they were closest to the door. Dick circled around the desk to stand beside her.

"We were all given one, all of us met to help Godfrey 'usher in a new era.'" Luthor's voice dripped with sarcasm. He shot the device in Artemis' hands a withering look.

"What do you mean, 'all of us'? Who's that?" Jaime demanded.

Luthor considered him for a moment and then shrugged. "Who doesn't matter, so much as why. This new era Godfrey spoke of was going to be ruled from on high by his master, and those of us who helped them would be reworded for our efforts."

"How does this have anything to do with the teammate of ours Godfrey kidnapped?" M'gann asked. She still hadn't taken her hand off of Conner's arm.

Luthor shrugged. "Honestly? I have no idea. All I know is that Godfrey can be very persuasive when he wants to be and if he wanted your friend you're not getting the kid back."

"Yes, we are," Artemis said. The intensity of her response brought the room to silence. She'd sounded more than angry, she'd sounded dangerous.

"That device there opens a Boom Tube. Simply tell it where you want to go and it'll take you there, but really, I already know where you heroes want to go."

"And where is that?" Conner snapped.

"You want to go to Apokolips and stop Darkseid before he finds a way to bring his world here, onto ours. That's Godfrey's end goal. If he took your friend, Apokolips is where you'll find them."

"What evidence do we have to know that you are telling the truth?"

Lex Luthor turned, locked eyes with Kaldur and said very slowly, very firmly, "G. Gordon Godfrey and I have very different ideas about what is good for this planet. I am no one's servant."

"So you're just going to let us take this out of the goodness of your heart?" Artemis demanded, waving the machine back and forth in front of Luthor' face.

Luthor frowned. "It's called a Father Box, and I'm not giving it to you out of the goodness of my heart. I'm giving it to you because Godfrey tricked me into helping him in the first place and because I find that, without proper guidance, you people tend to miss the truly important object lessons."

"What's going to happen when the Light find out you simply gave us the device?" Kaldur asked.

"They won't. A better question is, how will you children defend yourselves from Godfrey's influence?"

"Let's go," Kaldur said instead of answering. He watched Lex Luthor, and Lex Luthor watched him as one by one the members of the team filed back out of the room. Artemis lingered at the door, watching Mercy closely just in case she tried anything while Kaldur tried to leave. She did nothing.

Luthor waved. "Good luck."

They regrouped on the roof and met as little resistance leaving the building as they had getting into it.

"He didn't actually tell us how to use the Box, did he?" Jaime asked.

"No, not really." Artemis studied the machine in her hands, eyes narrowed. Tell it where to take you, and it'll do the rest. That sounded more like magic then science if she was going to be totally honest. Wally liked to say all magic could be broken down and explained scientifically, with only a few notable acceptations.

"If we use this device, we must do so with the assumption that Luthor is setting us up for a trap," Kaldur said. He crossed his arms over his chest and considered their options. M'gann's link kept their minds open to one another, but only sent information specifically broadcast. Artemis got flashes of what Kaldur was thinking, pictographic images of abstract ideas, but without his words to go with the images the jumble was largely meaningless.

M'gann rung her hands. "We should call the League, shouldn't we?"

"Definitely, but time is a factor here. The longer we wait the longer the enemy has Impulse," Dick said. He moved closer to Artemis, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder. She sent him a tight lipped smile.

"I say we try to radio them once more and then we see where this thing can take us." Conner nodded to the device in question and then punched one fist into the other.

"The radio is still jammed. I tried as soon as we got up here to reach the Tower." Kaldur didn't look happy about that fact.

Artemis couldn't blame him, she really couldn't, but this was a moment. She could feel it building underneath her skin. Something big was about to happen, adrenaline already tingling up and down her arms. She was going to get Bart back, and if this thing worked the way Lex Luthor said it did, she just might get Wally back as well.

We go for it, Artemis thought. It grounded her, strengthened her, to feel the link of her friends' minds inside her own. They were about to do something incredibly dangerous, but what else was new?

We go for it, echoed in her head and it didn't matter whose voice she heard say the words because everyone radiated their agreement.

M'gann, will you be able to shield our minds if we encounter Godfrey again? Without injuring yourself? Kaldur asked.

For the first time since they set out this morning—it felt like days already—M'gann grinned. It lacked all of the uncertainty and possessed all of the strength Artemis had ever admired about M'gann. Oh, now that I know his trick, I'll be ready for him. Don't you worry about that.

Then we go for it.

"Take us to Bart Allen," Artemis commanded.

Nothing happened.

Conner looked above them, behind them, to the side, but they were still very definitely on the roof of Lex Luthor's office building.

"Well, that was a load of c—" he began, and then abruptly stopped as a massive, swirling circle of golden light opened beneath their feet. Artemis felt her stomach drop and screamed before she could help herself. The light swallowed her whole, swallowed them all whole, and Artemis could hear the others' panic in her mind but she couldn't see them anymore. All she could see was bright, searing light. She tried to close her eyes, but it made no difference, the shine came through either way. The pins and needles were all consuming now, filling ever last inch of her, there was no up, no down, just endless, fathomless light—

And then there was red and rock and Artemis fell on someone hard enough to set her teeth on edge. That was going to be another bruise for sure. She allowed the momentum of her fall to roll her off of the figure she landed on—a guy in a black leather jacket, pants with too many pockets and holsters, and a red helmet that covered his entire face—and back to her feet.

They were on the base of a walk way that led to the top of a steep cliff face. A group of people that did not include her own team were trying to get to their feet now, untangling themselves from the mess of five bodies falling on them, and Batman was part of that group. He was already upright, looking towards the end of the path. Figures clustered around a stone pillar, someone massive looking and Godfrey as well as a half dozen more of those dog things. She couldn't tell what was going on by the pillar, the big guy up there was blocking her view.

"Artemis?"

She froze.

Artemis had heard that voice in her dreams for weeks, called his cell phone just to listen to his recorded message when the thought of never seeing him again got to be too much, would recognize it until the day she died. Her heart was beating too fast, too hard, because it was all she could hear in her ears anymore and the pins and needles in her body weren't gone yet but she could still feel her hands shaking. Slowly, so slowly—she wasn't as fast as he was, had never been as fast as he was—Artemis turned.

Wally looked at her the way a drowning man looked at land, the way a starving man looked at sustenance, exactly the same way he'd been looking at her for the last five years.

"Wally," Artemis said like the name was a psalm.

A scream, shattered, terrified, and in agony, echoed down to them and Artemis whipped around to stare up at the pillar. The view was unobstructed, and only now did she realize someone was strapped to that stone.

"BART!"


	12. Chapter 12

When he was a kid, Jaime used to have nightmares. All the time, about the stupidest things that managed to seem so terrifying in the moment. Sometimes in his nightmares he went to school without any pants, sometimes he tried to speak and all that came out of his mouth were frog croaks. Most of the dreams left him feeling silly and ashamed, but not terrified. Except for one. One dream that came back, over and over again. It was always the same.

Jaime would be tied up, sitting under a spotlight, and everything outside of its glow was dark. He was scared already, filled with the unshakable knowledge that something bad was going to happen even before the figure stepped out of the darkness and into the light. The figure was tall, thin, skeletal, and held in its hand an equally thin, sharp dagger.

"This will hurt," the figure rasped. And then it began to carve images into Jaime's flesh.

He woke up from those dreams screaming, Mamá and Papá tearing into his room like they thought there was someone there they needed to fight off.

Since Khaji Da, Jaime hadn't had those dreams. For almost two years now his sleep was unmolested by pain and fear. Now though, now it looked like the dream had found its way into Jaime's waking world. He didn't care who the others standing here at the base of the cliff path there. Batman was with them, so they must be allies. He didn't care that he could feel the heat of Apokolips even through the filters of the suit. No. What Jaime cared about was Bart, tied to the center of a large stone pillar, surrounded by a circle of monsters, screaming so loud even Khaji Da took note of it.

Jaime Reyes, there is a dimensional anomaly forming. The Impulse is the epicenter. Khaji Da's voice was off, tighter than normal.

"What does that mean?" Jaime asked. He jumped into the air, trying to get a better glimpse of what was going on. An orange skinned woman, one of the people Batman brought with him, leaped up into the air as well.

Sensors indicate that there is a machine at the base of the pillar. It is using the Impulse as a focal point.

"What are they trying to use him for?" Jaime demanded.

Data inconclusive.

"Who are you talking to?" the woman asked sharply.

Jaime startled, and then flinched as Bart screamed again. "I'm not—"

YOU ARE ALL DYING.

Jaime slapped his hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut. The woman shrieked and fell from the sky. All consuming pain wormed its way into the very marrow of his bones, bubbled up in his blood, he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't feel anything outside of the hurt, Khaji Da the only thing keeping him in the air at all—

And then the pain cut out. It wasn't gone completely, but it was dulled, more like a day old throb then the burning ache from a moment ago.

Is everyone alright? M'gann's mental voice asked. For the first time that Jaime could remember he was glad for the feel of someone else in his brain.

Who are you? How did you get into my head? A voice Jaime didn't recognize demanded. It was male and rough.

Jaime looked down. The woman was on her feet, leaning a little shakily against a man that looked part machine. The man had one had up and pointed at M'gann, and the end of the hand looked remarkably similar to Jaime's plasma cannons.

Cool it, Sparky. She's on our side. They all are, another voice said. Jaime couldn't pin point whose it was. This one was male too, but kind of flippant.

How do you—

Less talking, more saving the kid. These guys are my teammates!

Jaime nearly fell from the sky again. That voice he knew. Even with the one mission he'd had with the original Kid Flash, Jaime recognized that voice. How many times had he gotten a call from Bart, chattering a mile a minute, about how cool his cousin was? How many old training tapes had he pulled off the computer in Happy Harbor to watch and learn what he was getting himself into? Kid Flash was in almost all of them. He and Artemis were a legend in their own right.

We need to get to Bart. Aqualad's voice slid smoothly into Jaime's head. Normally it unsettled him a bit, to know that Kaldur used to be an enemy and now was not. Even if the whole thing had been a deception, it was the only interactions with Kaldur that Jaime had before things started to fall apart. Not now. Now Kaldur sounded poised, ready, and Jaime was glad someone could so calm right now.

The man in a suit can alter your mind and make you do whatever he says. Miss Martian will block him from our consciousness for as long as she can, but he must be removed as a threat.

Ok, Fish Boy, you call the shots and we'll pull the trigger, one of Batman's allies chirped. It was the same flippant voice that told the machine man to calm down. Jaime watched as the figure dressed in a brown leather jacket and a red helmet turned around and fixed his face in Jaime's general direction. It was hard to tell if red helmet guy was looking him straight on or not.

That's Cyborg, Starfire, Flash the third, baby Batman, and I'm Red Hood. Introductions over. What do we have to do? the red helmet guy—Red Hood, what a creative name—said. He had a gun in his hand that looked less than helpful against the massive, molting dog-bear monsters charging down the hill at them.

Nightwing's voice filled the space in his head. It was probably the only voice that Jaime always felt comfortable having a direct line to his mind. There was just something about Nightwing that made him fell…safe, defended even.

Miss Martian is protecting our minds, and we need someone to guard her. Jaime glanced down and to the right. Miss Martian had her hands up and pressed against her forehead, eyes open by unseeing. Superboy was beside her, crouched and ready, watching the dog-bears slinking their way down the hill towards them.

Cyborg, your mind has enough electronics running through it to not have to worry about mind control. You take point and guard Miss Martian, said Nightwing's voice again, but it was Batman who turned around and gestured to Cyborg.

There are duplicates. The Nightwing and the Kid Flash have older genetic replicates present, Khaji Da whispered in his ear. Jaime shook the information off. He didn't care, not at the moment. He was more concerned about Superboy flexing his fist threateningly as Cyborg got closer to Miss Martian.

"How do we know we can trust these guys?" he demanded out loud.

"They saved my life and helped me get home. Pull it together! We have to help Bart!" Kid Flash shouted and Superboy gave a full body flinch. The anger melted off his face, replaced by a strangely childlike shock.

"You're alive," he whispered.

The sound of an arrow snapped Jaime's attention back to the front lines just in time to see one of Artemis' shots embed itself into the eye of one of the monsters before it could get a swipe off at Batman. Baby Batman? Guy who sounded just like Nightwing?

The arrow found its mark and the creature roared. It reared up on its hind legs, towering over Artemis and Batman, and then a bolt of green light smashed it in the vulnerable underbelly, knocking the creature over backwards. The orange skinned woman, Starfire, left her hand raised and ready, ignoring the slight green smoke issuing from it.

Flash, Kid Flash, take the far sides, get Impulse off of that pillar. Superboy, Starfire, Blue Beetle, take those creatures out. Red Hood, Nightwing, Batman, Artemis and myself will engage the others. The goal is to get Impulse, that it all, Aqualad commanded, and then absolute pandemonium broke out.

The dog-bear things attacked in mass. Five of them raced down the hill towards the waiting group. Superboy launched himself forward and close lined two in one go. He screamed in very clear, very loud pain that did nothing to drown out the screams coming from Bart, and began to tear into the creatures with a violence Jaime had never seen before. Starfire lifted up into the air and began hurling bolts of green light at all three of the other creatures, laying down the heaviest fire on the one she'd already knocked over. Jaime followed suit, because the creatures were still trying to pick themselves up and get to Miss Martian and Cyborg.

The women in armor drew weapons and charged, screaming a battle cry out into the hot air. A spear sailed through the air, straight for Red Hood's back, and Jaime knocked it away with a well aimed blast from his cannons. He felt the whisper of gratitude in his head, but couldn't pinpoint whose it was.

Advise alternate course of action. To remove the Impulse from the pillar without shutting down machine will result in death, Khaji Da said sharply.

What?!

Flash and Kid Flash are going to kill the Impulse if they continue on with their current plan.

"STOP!" Jaime shouted. He forgot about the mental link in his panic, forgot that there were still five monsters trying to eat his friends. All he knew was that Kid Flash was going to kill his cousin, was going to kill Bart, if he didn't stop him in time. And Kid Flash was the fastest person around, so Jaime would never make it in time.

Don't break formation! Aqualad's voice demanded, but Jaime paid the command no mind. He was flying faster then he'd ever gone before, shouting Kid Flash's name out as he went, and it wasn't going to be enough. He saw, as if in slow motion, Flash and Kid Flash appear on either side of the pillar. He saw their hands reach up to pull the shackles restraining Bart away. He saw the tendons in Bart's neck bulge as he threw his head back and howled.

He watched as Darkseid turn with a smooth, unhurried twist of his massive hips. He watched as red hot lasers issued from his eyes and made for Flash's hands.

It was only quick reflexes that saved Flash. He pulled his hand back just in time to avoid the blast that instead melted the rock he'd been touching only seconds ago. Burning stone dripped down and began to sear Bart's upturned palm.

Darkseid shot another blast at Kid Flash, one that Kid Flash was ready for after the fist. He dodged the blow, but could do nothing to stop the melted rock from dripping down onto Bart, this time missing his hand and instead burning his left ear. Bart wasn't even making sound anymore, his chest expanded in one unending, silent scream.

Where's the machine?!

At the base of the pillar, beside the G. Gordon Godfrey's feet. Khaji Da pulled up a new screen across Jaime's eyes, one that looked straight threw the rocks and bodies blocking his view and locked onto a small, rectangular block between the pillar and Godfrey.

Got it!

Jaime could have blasted the device, but both Flashes were dancing, ducking, and weaving the red blasts coming from Darkseid's eyes, and he didn't want to knock one of them into a blast on accident. So, instead of taking the risk, he dropped one shoulder, slammed into Godfrey at top speed and knocked him clear of the pillar. Jaime felt his feet skid across the heated ground and couldn't stop himself in time to avoid bumping up against the pillar as well.

And there it was. The little box that was causing so much pain looked exactly like the one that Lex Luthor gave them to get here in the first place. The only difference was that this one was glowing a bright, deep black, kind of like a solar eclipse, all lit up from the back. Without any warning the fingers on Jaime's right hand were shoved together and the armor around them fused into one long, thin cord that sparked at the end.

Press your had to the left top corner of the device. This will hurt, Jaime Reyes, but it will stop the reaction from killing the Impulse.

Khaji Da never sounded soft, never sounded like emotion factored into his decision making, but that last command was almost kind. It kind of boggled the mind, how totally and completely Jaime and Khaji Da agreed on this course of action.

"Stop!" Godfrey snarled, and Jaime could feel the command tugging at the back of his mind, but it couldn't get past Miss Martian's safeguards. He made sure to look G. Gordon Godfrey dead in the eyes as he pressed his fused armor against the device.

Something like lava boiled in his veins and Jaime realized this was what it felt like to die. It hurt worse than a broken bone, worse than the Reach's experiments, worse than the feel of Khaji Da fusing to his muscles and nerves. He couldn't breathe, lungs stuck on the inhale so that he couldn't even scream. Dark, inky tar seeped in through the cracks and crevasse of his suit, covered the visor over his eyes slowly, incrementally, eating away at the world until it was gone, Jaime was gone, all that existed was the pain and nothing outside of it.

You are not alone, Jaime Reyes.

The suit itself gave a shudder around Jaime's body and the tar covering his vision cleared. Slowly, with the distant awareness that came with waking from a dream, Jaime felt hands around his wrist, pulling and pushing. It took him far longer than it should to realize the person trying to pry him away from the device was Godfrey. Despite his best efforts Jaime's fingers remained stuck to the little rectangular machine, only now the circuitry across the top of the device was sparking.

"Let go! You're going to ruin everything! You could kill us all!" Godfrey snarled. He pulled one had back and drove it forward into the visor of Jaime's suit with as much face behind the blow as a normal flesh and bone arm could manage. Khaji Da dispersed the vibrations before Jaime's head even got the chance to snap back from the blow.

Now is your chance, Jaime Re—

A hand the size of a hub cap reached down and pulled Jaime up off the ground. A second hand pulled the machine away from his fused fingers with an efficient twist of a massive writ. Jaime didn't feel the pain, but he could hear Khaji Da scream inside his head. It never occurred to Jaime that Khaji Da could feel pain before this moment, and as the pressure increased around Jaime's ribs, he wished the knowledge had never become relevant.

"You are not of Earth," Darkseid said. His voice was deep and smooth, silken the same way G. Gordon Godfrey's felt as it brushed against Jaime's brain. Almost instantly Miss Martian's presence intensified, like a double layer of protection.

"Why is a Reach operative interfering in my affairs? Your people live by my whim alone. Do you forget this, little bug?" Darkseid asked. His question was punctuated by a powerful twitch of his fingers.

Jaime felt bone give under the pressure and Khaji Da whimper inside his head. Stars exploded before his eyes, blinked into galaxies and flickered out of existence just as quickly. He kind of wanted to vomit, but couldn't draw enough air into his lungs to manages such a monumental task.

He's going to kill us! Jaime thought. Within the privacy of his own head he didn't mind Khaji Da knowing just how terrified that thought made him.

We have one shot, Jaime Reyes! I will expand my body to the largest armor form I can, but doing so will utilize some of your organic matter. When his grip loosens, you must break free. This will not work twice.

Do it! He's going to kill us!

The armor pressing against Jaime's chest expanded. It happened so quickly and so unexpectedly that it felt like little bits of Jaime's skin went with it. Barbs sunk deep into his flesh, pierced bone, and anchored there. The curious feeling of being both withered and engorged filled Jaime for just one moment, and then the massive fingers crushing his ribs loosened. He wasn't aware of telling Khaji Da to get them out of dodge, or even thinking that they had to get to Bart, because thinking at all, about anything but the odd not-quite-pain filling his body was hard at the moment, but Khaji Da had it covered. He flung them up, over Darkseid's hands, flipped them onto their back in the air, and fired four blasts in perfect unison. Bart's limp weight dropped into Jaime's arms and he had the presence of mind to curl himself around the precious cargo.

Darkseid watched them as they lied there. His red eyes narrowed, glowing like hot embers in the dark under his protruding brows. Behind him, Kid Flash dropped to his hands and knees. Jaime blinked. He clutched Bart close, the smell of burnt flesh sharp even through the filters of his suit. There was a spark of red and then Flash was slamming at full speed into Darkseid.

It was school yard fighting at its finest. Darkseid went down, toppled with an undignified grunt over Kid Flash's back and landed with a thud that shook the cliff face.

Everything stopped, the sound of clashing weapons and claws abruptly silence.

And then G. Gordon Godfrey gave a howl of outrage and lunged. He fell on Jaime, kicking and screaming in incoherent rage. Shaking fingers dug into any fleshy part of Bart's body that they could reach and pulled.

It felt like his heart was trying to climb out of Jaime's throat. It jumped up and lingered behind his Adam's apple so that it hurt to breath. Godfrey was going to tear Bart apart, rip him limb from limb like a poorly made doll, a soggy piñata, a papier-mâché boy left out in the rain too long. He swiped at Godfrey with one hand, catching him just over the left eye brow, while with the other Jaime tried to pull the unresponsive Bart closer. The armor was deflating, shrinking back to it's original size and therefor offered less protection, less coverage for Bart. Jaime kicked, tried to get his feet under him to push off and fly away, but Godfrey was wild and with each passing second Jaime feared for Bart's limbs.

A ball of yellow plowed into G. Gordon Godfrey. He fumbled backwards, slammed into the base of the pillar, and then slumped down.

Kid Flash leaned in close. There was a bruise forming on his jaw already. His eyes flashed green, greener than Jaime could remember anyone's eyes ever looking before, and then his smiled.

"You get him out of here," Kid Flash instructed. His hand darted out, brushed sweaty, blood crusted, red-brown hair back from Bart's face, and smiled the way Mamá and Papá used to smile at Jaime when he woke from a nightmare in the dead of night. "You get him out of here. I have a plan."


	13. Chapter 13

Wally was used to the world moving in slow motion. Even before he recreated Uncle Barry's experiment and gotten his own set of powers, it felt like everyone else around him liked to take those two seconds longer to think about things, to movie. After the powers, the rest of the world was still slow, still agonizingly inching along bit by bit, but it was alright. Uncle Barry was right there with Wally, watching as they passed the world by.

Now was different somehow. It was like the world had suddenly caught up to Wally and decided to make up for lost time. It started as soon as the fighting did, but came on kind of gradually, so that by the time Wally realized something was different it was too late to stop and ask his older self what was going in. They were at Darkseid's feet and taking a moment to ask why there were suddenly so many different images flashing through Wally's mind would get one or both of them killed. It wasn't like visions or ESP or any magical-mumbo-jumbo like that. The images were there and gone in seconds, just long enough for them to register consciously before fading away and they changed with each action Wally took, giving him brief glimpses of what would happen if he did something different, went left instead of right, ducked instead of dodged.

Uncle Barry had a theory he used to talk about, one based on Einstein's own theory of relativity. Uncle Barry thought that maybe, if he concentrated hard enough, he would be able to see probabilities, possible outcomes for actions taken and even actions that never happened. Like a butterfly effect inside his own mind. Wally figured it was, hypothetically, possible, but Uncle Barry had never managed to figure out how to tune his brain into the right wave length.

It looked like Wally had somehow.

It was the Speed Force, it had to be. There was nothing different about Wally now then there had been even four hours ago except for the Speed Force. It was the only variable. It had to be the reason why the sounds of the battle around him dropped away, stripped into the background as the images before Wally's eyes shifted.

Blink.

If he stepped forward with his left foot, he would be able to get to Blue Beetle and Bart in time to knock Godfrey away, Blue would gather Bart up in his arms to fly, and Darkseid would kill him. Twin beams of red light would rip right through Blues Beetle's armor, just underneath his neck. Blue would die, and then Conner would die because he would try to avenge Blue and forget about his job protecting M'gann. Godfrey would get back on his feet and M'gann would falter in the moment Conner died. Dominos. So many, falling one after another, until Bart was back up on that pillar and Darkseid's machines tore him apart.

Blink.

If Wally stepped forward with his right foot he would have more velocity, hit Godfrey harder, and Godfrey wouldn't get back up. That was it, that was all the Speed Force could show him, but it was better than the other vision.

Wally darted forward, right foot first, and barreled into Godfrey with every ounce of weight he had. The crack of bone that sounded as Godfrey hit the pillar was more satisfying than he wanted to admit to. Bart was bruised, bloodied, pail and shuttering even in his unconscious state from within the relative safety of Jaime's arms and for the first time since Artemis went undercover and had her life seriously threatened, Wally found himself wondering if maybe now wasn't the time to make an exception to the no killing rule. Just one, for what Godfrey had done to Bart.

There was a rectangular device beside Jamie's left foot. He'd seen something like it before, back in Bialya if Wally was remembering right—and all memories from that mission were still a little clouded and jumbled—but it was definitely the thing that has been hurting Bart.

The decision to smash the machine was already in his head, Wally already had his arm up to hit the thing at full speed, when more probabilities flashed through his mind. Too many to really focus on this time, most of them still seemed to end with one or all of them dead, but an idea raced its way out of the images. One that left Wally gasping and wide eyes with new found purpose. It could work. It could definitely work.

"You get him out of here. I have a plan," he said, gesturing to Bart.

Jamie nodded hurriedly, gathered Bart close, and then both were airborne and streaking away from the pillar and Darkseid as fast as Blue Beetle could fly.

"They will not get far," Darkseid said. It was almost a conversational tone, lacking the maniacal fervor that most villains in to world conquering seemed to get when their plans started to go wrong. The big guy had his sights set on Jaime's retreating back and Wally knew—he just knew—that the laser beams were about to come out to play again.

The most beautiful whistle of wind in existence split the air and two arrows were suddenly protruding from Darkseid's eyes.

Time to run, the Flash thought loudly as he ran down the cliff path, knocking into anything not on their side as he went. Wally followed close behind, the rectangular device clutched tight in his hands.

The arrows wouldn't hurt Darkseid. If the guy went up against Superman then there was no way they could have, and no way the arrows should have landed when Darkseid had plenty of time to dodge because Superman would have had time to dodge unless he was distracted. Score one point for Darkseid being an obsessive villain just like the rest of them after all.

I need Cyborg's help reconfiguring this machine, Wally thought. He dropped to his knees and allowed momentum to let him slide like a limbo champion under the hard arch of one of the armored woman's swords. He didn't slow down enough to see what her reaction was and he didn't slow down enough to take her out of the game. If this idea worked he would be taking everyone out of the game in a few minutes anyway.

Go, my friend, we will run interference for you both as long as possible. And that was the Kaldur Wally knew and loved. That was the Kaldur he spend a year missing and not sure the team would ever get back.

Something tender and distinctly private passed over his consciousness and Wally didn't have to follow the mental pull further to know it was Artemis. He was almost painfully away of her fighting towards the front of the ranks, Dick and Jason on either side of her working as a three man team to take down one warrior after another. The ladies could give Amazons a run for their money in terms of strength and speed, but Wally always had a secret suspicion that if it came right now to it Artemis and Dick would be able to take out almost anyone on the team, superpower or not. Dick had Batman's training and his own natural grace that was kind of scary if Wally thought about it too much because all of it was normal, human talent. Artemis had her father's League of Shadows training and her own ruthless intelligence that honestly left Wally wondering why anyone would think a human wasn't the most dangerous thing out there some days.

Jason had that same kind of skill about him, that same stamp of human fortitude. And maybe Wally was biased because he loved Artemis and Dick, so Jason got swept up in the fanfare as well. Or, he amended as Jason performed a complicated front flip over a warrior's shoulders to land behind her and executed a complicated series of punches and jabs that made the woman seized and topple over, maybe Jason was just that good as well.

"What do we got here?" Cyborg asked as Wally skidded to a hold in front of him

"This," Wally said, holding out the machine for Cyborg. M'gann was behind them both, still out of the way of the majority of the fighting, feet half a foot of the ground and eyes glowing bright. Blue Beetle and Bart were behind her. They should be safe so long as Kaldur and the others were able to draw attention away from this little corner of the cliff.

"I'm pretty sure I know how it works. It's supposed to open wormholes or something basically similar to allow for transport between remote locations—"

"Teleportation?" Cyborg clarified. His fingers did something strange. The tips seemed to sink down into the brace of the digit and in its place were wires and sparks that connected to parts of the machine that Wally couldn't identify.

"Boom tube is what the League calls it, but yeah. I think that Godfrey and Darkseid reconfigured this thing. Superman said that Darkseid was trying to pull this whole planet down to Earth with him using the boom tube tech, but it blew up. I think it put Darkseid into a pocket dimension. That's why Godfrey got into my detention and not yours; he was stuck somewhere between the two and our side was open. We tried to get back and visit Red Hood so many times when we were younger that it must have let Godfrey slip out of this dimension and into our own."

"Where he spent years trying to find a way to break Darkseid out of this limbo space and back to Earth," Cyborg concluded. He was glancing between the machine and a pop up computer very similar to the one that Dick used, taking in the read outs from his investigation of the machine.

"They were using Bart. I think that this machine was trying to use him as energy to fuel a white hole. It'll let things out, but not in. It would have the energy to move something big, and not have to worry about someone like, say, Superman being able to get in and stop the process without one of these machines to open a doorway."

"So what do we do?"

Wally tapped the machine in Cyborg's hand with one finger and was pleased that it didn't shake. We turn this thing into a black hole generator. Then we negotiate.

If we get caught in a black hole there's a good chance that we'll never be able to get out again, whether we have one of these boom tube things or not, Cyborg replied. He seemed to understand the need to keep this inside, keep this unspoken. Wally was positive he didn't realize the added benefit of this mode of speech; now everyone on the link new about the plan. If there was anyone who wanted to argue the possibility of trapping themselves forever in an inescapable either of darkness, now was the time to speak up.

Go get 'em, tiger, Artemis thought, and her voice was the most beautiful thing Wally could ever remember hearing in his life, even if he wasn't technically hearing it…

A roar of anger split the air and Wally looked up in time to see Darkseid rise above the heads of the combatants separating him and his device. Darkseid flew like Superman flew, fists in front of him and belly flat like he was being held up by some special effects wires. He had all the raw power in his motions that anyone with half a brain knew Superman possessed as well, but he didn't have Superman's restraint. The coils of his muscles were evident underneath is rock like skin, the sonic boom of his take off loud enough to shake the ground. There would be time for Wally to move, he was fast enough, but not Cyborg and not M'gann. Wally wasn't strong enough to pull both of them away to safety, and the Flash was still racing to them just behind Darkseid—he wouldn't get there in time—

Conner and Starfire slammed into Darkseid so hard that another sonic boom sounded and this one knocked Wally over flat on his back. It pushed M'gann out of the air for a moment as well, the light in her eyes flickering away as she worked to write herself before shining once more. She'd gotten better at maintaining the mental connection over the years; Wally didn't even feel it flutter.

"Good hit," Conner said. He grinned, tried not to focus too much on the fact that it felt grim even to him, and glanced at the woman next to him. At some point her name had been mentioned—Starfire—but he couldn't remember when that had happened exactly. All he really knew was that she could take a hit and dish them back out with enough strength and skill to impress.

Conner tried not to think too much about how little her suit covered and how nice bits that were visible actually looked because he was beginning to think he had a type; red haired aliens girls with brightly colored skin.

Starfire smiled at him in such an open, honest way, that Conner felt his own grin strengthening despite himself.

"You too show a great aptitude for striking the enemy. Are you a younger version of Superman?" she asked.

Darkseid was getting to his feet again and didn't look happy. That was fine, he could be as mad as he wanted so long as he stayed away from Wally and M'gann long enough for the plan to work.

"Not a younger version of Superman…More like a younger brother, I guess?" Conner said, because he wasn't really thinking about the things coming out of his mouth so much as he was thinking about the living mountain that was stomping towards them.

"A younger brother? How glorious!" Starfire crowed, and then she hurled one of her green glowing bolts of light at Darkseid.

"You prolong the inevitable. You, all of you, are weak. You're frail. Breakable. Soft. You have no hope of stopping me, you can only delay your subjugation and suffer for your interruption," Darkseid said. He batted the bolt away like it was a baseball, or a fly, something that posed no real threat to him.

Keep him talking, the voice that didn't belong to Dick but sounded like it did said inside Conner's head.

"I bet we could give you a run for your money. Pretty sloppy after all, I mean, you let a bunch of kids throw a wrench in your plans. Not proving yourself too competent here." There was enough cocky arrogance in that tone to annoy even the calmest of people, and Darkseid was no acceptation.

His eyes narrowed and then he lunged. Thick, hard fingers wrapped around Conner's throws and a fist slammed into this face hard enough for start to explode in his vision. It hurt, and most attacks didn't really hurt in the deep down, bone level that this one did. Darkseid pulled his fist back and hit him again, and again, and again.

Starfire was suddenly there, her arms straining as she held the next blow on check. Conner blinked the fog out of his vision in time to see Darkseid's eyes glow red and Starfire's eyes blazed clear green. Two different beams of light connected inches away from Conner's face and then exploded. He was thrown backwards, slammed into something that immediately started to burn, and then rolled to try and get the remnants of the dead fire-monster dog things off of his shirt. Conner looked up to see Starfire lying about a foot away, on her back and scrubbing at her eyes. Darkseid stalked towards her, the fire burning in his gaze still.

"Leave her alone!" Conner shouted, trying to push himself up, but he hurt so bad, almost as bad as kryptonite.

And then the Batman seemed to pop up out of the ground behind Darkseid. He pulled something out of his belt, something that glowed a sick yellow color. Like it was no big deal at all, like he wasn't climbing up the back of a superpower, kidnapping, monster, Batman lunged up Darkseid's back, flipped over his head and shoved the glowing yellow thing into Darkseid's nose and mouth. Darkseid snarled in pain and swiped at Batman, but the blow only caught the tail end of Batman's cape as he rolled away.

A streak of red signaled the Flash and Starfire was suddenly being helped back to her feet from the relative safety of Connor's side. He wanted to ask if she was alright, or what the glowing yellow stuff had been, but Kaldur was charging Darkseid now that he was distracted. With a mighty cry, both water bearers crashed like tidal waves, one after the other, into Darkseid's chest and shoulder.

Darkseid staggered into Dick. Conner wasn't sure what Dick did exactly, because it happened too fast and too smooth for him to really break down, but the end result was clear. One second Darkseid was trying to stay on his feet, the nest Dick had used his own body as a pivot point, or a fulcrum and Darkseid was toppling head over feet with stuck to his eyeballs. Dick flipped away as the explosion sounded and Darkseid's head snapped back.

The guy in the red hood was ready, an honest to goodness grenade pulled and in his hands. He shoved the thing into Darkseid's open mouth and then he was darting away as well.

We might actually win this, Conner thought. The second explosion in so many minutes went off inside Darkseid's mouth and the team held their collective breaths, surrounded by dead monsters and downed warriors.

"ENOUGH!" Darkseid roared.

Without warning he was there, in front of Conner, Starfire and the Flash. His eyes blazed red fire and Conner barely had enough time to throw himself over the other two to protect them from the blast. It burnt, awakening the pain once more and Conner screamed. And Darkseid was fast, so fast, that he'd inflicted his attack and was moving on already. He had Dick by the leg, had him lifted up and was growling at him while ignoring the bullets Red Hood peppered into this back.

"You are an annoyance, an infestation and I've lost my patience with you all," Darkseid said.

"We feel that same way. So, let's open negotiations."

Conner turned. Artemis and Wally stood side by side. Between them both , resting on the rocks at their feet, was a machine identical to the one Lex Luthor gave them to get here. Cyborg and M'gann stood behind them, M'gann's eyes still glowing as she shielded their minds and Conner allowed himself to feel the brush on her touch in his mind with nothing but comfort. Jaime was beside M'gann, Bart still a limp weight in his arms.

Darkseid dropped Dick, who landed and rolled out of the range of danger and Red Hood's protective presence immediately. With his head cocked to the side in what might have been amusement, Darkseid asked, "What gave you the impression your deaths could be negotiated?"

Artemis pulled her bow tight, one sharp tipped arrow pointed down at the device on the ground.

"The fact that this little toy of yours could land us all in a black hole, where we all die," she said.

Darkseid's eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't doom yourself and your friends to such a fate."

"All for one and one for all, pall. If we die, you die."

Darkseid didn't look quite so amused any long


	14. Chapter 14

Artemis spent a lot of time as a child learning how to compartmentalize emotions. She was a novice at it when her mother took that fall off the side of a building and ended up in jail for three years. By the time she joined the team and started running around rooftops with Oliver Queen, she was a master. Artemis could have a no holds barred, knock out, throwdown fight with her mother over transferring to Gotham Academy, and then have no problem helping her mother set the table for dinner, or going down to the basement to switch the laundry because she could do it faster. Those were little things, easy things, to push into small corners of her mind and ignore.

It was harder, at first, to ignore Jade leaving and having only Dad around for almost a year. Then he left too and it was only Artemis, forcing herself to go to school each day, to come home and do her homework, to act as if nothing was wrong when she stepped outside the walls of her apartment because if she messed up someone would come and take her away. Compartmentalize the abandonment. Compartmentalize the anger. Compartmentalize the hurt. Someone paid rent and did the bills each month, and Artemis had her mother's debit card, that was all she needed.

After joining the team new things needed to be shoved into the little boxes inside her brain. The immediate attraction to Wally, the hurt at his cold welcome, how much she liked Conner and how envious she was of M'gann. The fear that at any moment someone was going to look at her and know, instinctively, that she did not belong there, know who her mother used to be, who her father and sister still were. The shame that she felt ashamed of her mother's past. The shame that she felt no shame of how much she loved her mother in spite of it.

Now that she was older, Artemis found herself compartmentalizing things automatically. She did it so much and so often that hiding on the submarine and pretending to be a completely different person hadn't been a problem until Kaldur was hurt and she had no choice but to be Artemis again, at least within the relative safety of her own head.

The only thing Artemis had not been able to compartmentalize, the only thing she couldn't pack away into a little box and hide from, was how totally and utterly she missed Wally.

Death wasn't new, frightening, or unexpected. Not with the life Artemis lead before the team and definitely not with the life she lived after it. The difference was that, when Wally died, he took a bit of Artemis' life away as well. Silly, considering how many fake deaths she'd endured, but the truth of the matter was still the same. Wally's death nearly killed Artemis as well, and she could see it killing little bits of her friends.

She'd thought a lot about death those first few days after the Arctic. She thought about what it would feel like to fade out of existence the way Wally had. She thought about how she would die in a fight. She thought about who would kill her. She thought about what kind of death she could embrace with satisfaction and no regrets.

Artemis thought she could be happy dying like this. Staring into the eyes of a god, surrounded by her friends, Wally a brave presence by her side, Artemis knew she could meet her death without any fear. She didn't want to die, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn't want this monster getting to Earth and finishing what the Reach started either.

"I admire your resolve," Darkseid said. He had his hands clasped behind his back and seemed to be smiling, but it was hard to tell with the way his face looked so much like stone. "To truly be willing to condemn your comrades to an eternity of darkness is a rare trait to find in one not already sworn to my cause."

"Here's the deal, Ugly. We walk away, and you and yours get to live for another day," Artemis said. She kept her grip strong around the bow, her arm perfectly straight. She wouldn't have to take her eyes off Darkseid to hit the target if it came down to that.

Darkseid glanced casually around them. He took in the dead dog-bear monsters, a number of which had arrows that smoldered softly protruding from their extremities. He took in the warrior women incapacitated on the ground. A few were moving slowly, little painful kissed leaving them as they tried to sit up or turn over to watch the confrontation. Godfrey was still lying up by the pillar and had not moved at all. If it was anyone other than Darkseid turning to look back at her, Artemis would feel confident in her victory. But Darkseid was like Superman. He was unbeatable, invulnerable, nothing they did was really going to hurt him except for maybe the black hole. They might die, but he would he trapped forever and the Earth would be safe.

Artemis thought of Lian's happy smile as she crawled across the room. She thought of her mother and sister. She even thought of her father, for one fleeting moment.

The Earth was worth more that Artemis.

"A counter offer is available. I can appreciate talent when I see it. You, the Martian behind you, and the Tamaranian have talent. Join my cause; align yourselves with this universe's true ruler. Do not throw this opportunity away."

Starfire said something guttural and viscous in a language Artemis didn't understand, but the universal tone of deep, insulted anger was clear enough. Darkseid's frown was enough of a translator for Artemis.

"What she said," Artemis countered, jutting her chin in Starfire’s direction. "You heard our terms."

Darkseid tilted his head to the side and considered her. Artemis could feel Wally by her side, knew that if she looked he would be tense and ready to move at a moment's notice.

And then Darkseid smiled.

"I think it is time to renegotiate the terms."

Darkseid moved. Artemis knew what speed was, on an intellectual level. She knew that Wally could run so fast he could walk across water before the surface tension caught up to the fact that he was there. She knew that Barry Allen and Bart were faster still, and she knew that Superman was able to outrun bullets like it was nothing at all. Artemis knew fast, and she knew she was not it.

Despite that knowledge, she still found herself caught in that moment between inhale and exhale, that split second where there was no air in her lungs but so much potential, and in that second she found herself nose to nose with Darkseid. She knew that her fingers released the arrow, because her body worked on instinct and automatics, but Darkside was as fast as the neurological impulses in her body.

Wally had his arms around her, one grabbing her waist, the other bracing her neck and head, as he spun away from Darkseid. Artemis couldn't see the whole action, had to wait until her brain caught up to what her eyes had already seen, before he could understand what was going on.

Darkseid stood above the black hole machine. In his hand he had the arrow she'd released and he was smiling. His eyes found Artemis'. Slowly, slow enough for her to watch the entirety of the action, he brought the arrow up to eye level and crushed it between his hands.

"Negotiations are over. Now you die," Darkseid declared. He turned to M'gann, Jaime with his precious burden, and Cyborg. "You will die first."

Artemis screamed M'gann's name, her own voice echoed by Wally's, but there was no time. She knew fast and she knew no one was going to get to them in time.

M'gann threw her arms out and Cyborg, Jaime and Bart were thrown away from her in wide arches. Darkseid didn't seem to care. He had one target at the moment and that target was M'gann. He lunged for her and one hand passed harmlessly through M'gann's body.

"No you don't, Martian," he said. The twin beams of light left his eyes and flashed through M'gann's chest. They passed without harm, but must have brought heat with them because M'gann screamed and turned tangible once more.

Get to Luthor's Boom Tube and leave! Her shout echoed in Artemis' mind so loud it actually hurt, and M'gann hadn't done that since they were kids.

Wally pulled her back, pulled her away from Darkseid and his fist smashing into M'gann's face. He shoved Artemis against Dick and Kaldur, both of whom were trying to help Jaime to his feet. Conner screamed as another blow landed and M'gann's presence in their minds blinked out.

"No! NO!" he screamed, struggling against Starfire, Flash, and Cyborg.

"We have to go now!" Red Hood said. "She's giving us time, don't waste it!"

And Darkseid laughed again, holding M'gann up off the ground by the back of her suit. He did it like she was nothing, a doll to break and discard. Artemis felt something in her fracture.

"NO!" Conner screamed again. He swept his arm wildly to the right.

Darkseid lifted into the air, flew twenty feet up and then slammed so hard back down that he hit the ground and kept going.

He landed half a football field to the right of M'gann.

No one had touched him.

The group held their collective breaths.

And then Wally was gone from Artemis' side. He scooped M'gann, ten feet away from Artemis and the huddled group, up into his arms so careful Artemis could see the care he took from where she stood. And then he was back.

Conner made a terrible, agonized sound and reached for M'gann. He looked like he was going to be sick as he cradled her close to his chest. Superman was a large man, and so was Lex Luthor to an extent. Somewhere along the way Artemis had forgotten how big, how strong Conner looked, saw it on a daily basis and so filed it away in one of the boxes in her mind as something unimportant. She'd forgotten all about it until now, when he looked beaten and broken with M'gann bleeding in his arms.

Kaldur thrust his hand into the space between the cluster of fighters, between Batman and Red Hood. He held Lex Luthor's boom tube generate in his tight grip."My friends, this may be our only chance. We must leave."

Hands shout out to touch the machine. Jaime pulled Bart closer, laced his armored fingers through Bart's so that both of their hands would touch the machine. Conner mimicked the action without looking away from M'gann's face. Cyborg, Starfire, Batman, and the Flash all slapped their hands down on the device. Wally touched the machine with one hand and with the other he slipped around Artemis' waist and gripped tightly. An anchor, one he needed badly and she happily provided.

As Kaldur gave the command and the feeling of too much and too little space opened up in the pit of Artemis' stomach Darkseid pulled himself up out of the crater he'd made. His eyes found Artemis' and the hatred that burned between them was a tangible thing.

She didn't stop to consider the action. There were too many boxes in Artemis' head and too many things compartmentalized. Nothing else could fit, all the space was gone. She couldn't shove away how worried she was that Bart hadn't opened his eyes yet. She couldn't ignore how terrifying it felt to hear the silence in her own head without M'gann thereto guard them. She didn't question the hatred that flared up so hot and fast it almost mode her choke.

Instead Artemis pulled an arrow from her quiver and drew the bow string back. Instead she saw Darkseid's body tense as he prepared to intercept their escape.

Instead she shot that arrow across the open space and watched it sail perfectly towards the black hole generator.

Wally's arm around her waist turned to steel, crushed her against his side, and then Apokolips vanished. Light filled every inch of Artemis, burnt her insides and radiated out of her skin. It hurt, but somehow the hurt felt good. It felt right. In the back of her mind she knew that Wally still had his arm around her waist and that knowledge wasn't something she would ever need to ferret away. She felt warm for the first time in months, so warm she might as well have been on fire, but that was alright too. She'd already decided she was fine with dying, as long as it was with these people.

And then the light was gone and Artemis hit the roof of the Luthor Corp building hard enough to make her teeth rattle. She rolled to her side and clapped both hands on her chin to try and stem both the pain and the string of profanity hissing threw her teeth, but it didn't help. Wally's arm, still around her waist and crushed slightly into the ground now, flexed and he pulled until she was curled against his side.

His second arm came up to join the first, cocooning Artemis between them. She was surrounded on all sides by his warmth, the smell of his hair and sweat. Something in Artemis fractured on Apokolips and now it broke. Shattered. Fell to a million pieces.

She was crying and didn't know when it happened. Blood leaked down her neck from a cut on the chin, her whole body ached from fighting, and for the first time in weeks Artemis felt alive. She crawled up, lied herself full length along Wally's body and smashed her lips to his in a hungry kiss. Wally growled low in his throat and pulled her in closer, tighter, kissed back so hard her head spun and Artemis cried and cried and cried. When she pulled back just enough to breathe, just enough to feel his breath against her lips again—god, how she'd missed that feeling—Artemis found that Wally's cheeks were wet too, trails of tears leaking down his cheeks.

"Don't you ever die on me again," she whispered. The words were too big, the feeling behind them too much, and if they got the opportunity to slip out of this safe space between her lips and his they might destroy something irrevocably.

Wally smiled and the beauty of it hurt. "Don't plan on it, babe. Definitely don't plan on it."

He kissed her again.

Someone coughed. Loudly.

The magic spell was lifted. Tearful reunions were wonderful, but there always seemed to happen around other people. It kind of put a damper on getting past the I-missed-you-so-much phase when someone else was there looking on.

Starfire and Cyborg were on their feet already, standing guard. In the clear light of day and not the warped, red burn of Apokolips, they looked like titans out of a Greek myth. It was abruptly humbling to know that she'd fought alongside them and held her own.

Red Hood was the one who'd coughed. He stood beside Wally and Artemis, gun drawn and ready as well. When he saw he had their attention he cocked his head backwards and Artemis felt her stomach do a twisted dance again. Jaime had Bart in his lap, the armor covering his face retracted so that he could lean close and check for breathing. Kaldur knelt beside them, Bart's limp wrist in his hand and the Flash hovering nervously behind them.

"He is breathing, and his pulse is strong. We must get out friends medical attention immediately, but I feel there is good reason to hope," Kaldur said gently. He laid Bart's arm down and set a heavy, consoling hand on Jaime's shoulder. Artemis remembered quite distinctly the way Kaldur used to do that with her, when the team was knew and she was green. "You did very well today."

Jaime gave a week nod, but did not say anything.

Across from them Conner had M'gann lay out flat on her back and watched Dick intently as he did something with his fancy wrist computer. Batman stood behind them like a silent guard.

"Nothing looks broken on the scans, but we'll know more once we get back to the tower."

"Well then, please leave my building at once. I only ask that you return what I lent you."

Lex Luthor stood in the doorway leading to the roof. Mercy was behind him and looked displeased with the arraignment if the deathly acidic glare she gave the rest of the roof was anything to go by. Luthor didn't seem to care that he was standing in front of his bodyguard when there was a sizable group of people who had the ability to hurt him sitting not too feet away.

"Conner, I suggest you have Martian Manhunter look the girl over if you're truly concerned," Luthor said, like he gave advice on how to treat injuries all the time. "Although, I wouldn't be too concerned. Martians are resilient."

"Shut up! You have no idea what you're talking about," Conner hissed. He curled himself over M'gann, slipping her back into his arms protectively.

Luthor just kind of looked at Conner for a long moment, the way that Artemis' father looked at her on that submarine the day he found out she was still alive. Like that, only less violent.

"You'll find your radios work now. There is a zata platform half a block to the right. Superman uses it from time to time," Luthor added.

He moved through the cluster of people, ignoring the hostility radiating from them to come to a stop beside Kaldur. "My machine, if you please," he said, holding his hand out.

Kaldur looked at the hand, then at Luther's face. He stood slowly. He was not quite taller than Lex Luthor, but both could stare each other in the eyes now. Kaldur's expression was closed off, cold.

"You sent us there in the hopes that we would destroy your enemy on your behalf, didn't you?" he asked softly.

Luthor smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. "As I've said before, I am not an angel. Occasionally, however, I do find myself on the side of the angels."

Kaldur ignored the waiting hand and addressed the group at large without taking his eyes off of Luthor.

"We are leaving now."

"I could force the issue," Luthor said, but he still sounded amused somehow. Like he was almost proud of their refusal to cooperate.

Kaldur did not smile, he did not raise his voice or even cross his arms. He simply looked at Luthor and replied, "You would lose."

Artemis' last sight before she slipped past Mercy and down the stairs with Wally in tow was the smile on Lex Luthor's face.


	15. Chapter 15

The Watchtower was not a medical facility. That was one of the first things Dick remembered having drilled into his head after the team gained access to it. There were, however, state of the art, fully operational, completely stocked medical rooms capable of handling surgery on a Kryptonian, ice baths for Martians, and the occasional sprained ankle when Black Canary got carried away in a spar with Green Arrow. Simply having medical equipment did not make up for having a fully trained doctor on staff, and that was the main point Bruce liked to draw attention to whenever anyone commented on how odd it was to zata all the way back to Earth if they had an injury.

Dick wasn't team leader anymore, so it wasn't like he actually had final say in the matter because he would defer to Kaldur for as long as possible after everything that had happened, but they both agreed going back to the Watchtower was for the best. There were simply too many of them to try and flood into a hospital in Gotham, or Star City or even Keystone, without arousing suspicion and attracting more trouble. He had the override codes to get their guests from the other dimension into the Watchtower on a temporary bases and had the foresight to radio ahead so that Batman knew the whole crew, motley as it might be at the moment, was coming.

It was a relief to see the cool, set frown greet him once the light of the zata tube faded away. The other Batman kind of freaked him out, if Dick was honest. He was too short, had smiled twice already, and kept looking at Dick like he wanted to chat. Chat. He knew who was under that cowl, and he didn't want to know how it had happened, or why. It hit too close to last year.

"Nightwing, report," Bruce said, his voice set in the normal, deep growl that Batman should speak in. Nothing at all like the poor imitation stepping through the zata tube behind Dick.

"We found the origin of the creature Artemis, Miss Martian and I fought in the Arctic. It was someone called Darkseid. I'll tell you everything, but we have injuries," he said.

The zata platform was overcrowded now. Jaime flickered in still holding Bart, Wally and…Older Wally right behind him. Artemis came in next, and it would have been impossible to miss the way Wally, his Wally, her Wally, zipped back to grab her hand before following Jaime off the platform.

"Come with me, we have a room all set up," Barry said. His words started to string together, body caught teetering between hurrying Jaime along, simple snatching Bart up and racing him to the hospital room himself, and shutting down at the sight of his no-longer-dead nephew. In the end Wally saved him the trouble of having to decide by insisting, "We'll catch up once someone's seen Bart."

"Right, yeah," Barry agreed with a sharp nod, voice choked. "We called in one of Batman's doctor friends. She's waiting in the room."

"I would like to come too, please," Starfire said. She flew past Bruce and her Batman, eyes on the Older Wally. It made sense. She didn't want to leave one of her own alone with a bunch of strangers, even ones that had seemed perfectly dependable in the thick of battle. Dick got that, he understood, no problem.

She didn't wait for anymore of an invitation than a nod from Older Wally before following down the hallway and out of sight.

"Where do I take M'gann? Who's going to—"Conner began. He had M'gann's still form clutched tightly to his chest.

"With me, this way." Dick didn't jump when Martian Manhunter materialized out of nowhere anymore, because he was used to M'gann doing it. He was kind of desensitized. Plus, if he looked out of the corner of his eye the camouflage mode made the air shimmer just enough to get the rough estimation of where M'gann or her uncle was. That knowledge helped strengthen Brice's training, which was enough to make Dick trust the little voices in the back of his head when they told him he wasn't alone in a room.

He didn't trust the little voices for much else, because if he did he'd have a breakdown. They were telling him right now that he should consider the possibility, insisting that throwing himself at Jason's booted feet and begging for forgiveness was a good idea. Now that the immediate danger was past he found it hard to breath, hard to exist in the same room as a Jason Todd who was older than fourteen years old.

What would he say when he found out Dick let him die? Again?

Manhunter lead Connor down the same hall Wally and the others went down a moment ago. That just left Dick, both Batmen, Jason, Kaldur and Cyborg standing there at the base of the zata tube. Maybe it was his imagination—probably it wasn't—but if felt like Bruce was giving off "go away" vibes harder than normal, while the other Batman was giving off " I want to say something but can't" vibes just as strongly. The result was Cyborg raising his single brown high at his Batman and exchanging a look with Kaldur.

"Batman, it is of the utmost importance that I speak to Superman about what has transpired here today," Kaldur said, cool and calm as you please. Dick was good at ignoring awkwardness when he needed, it was the only way to survive Gotham parties with Bruce's airheaded act, but no one had a better poker face than Kaldur. It was one of the many reasons he was the one to go undercover instead of someone else.

"Superman, Green Arrow and Black Canary are in the main lookout. Go there and give your report. You are," Bruce added, glancing up at Cyborg. " ?"

Cyborg gave a small start, glanced at the other Batman, and then nodded. "Go with Aqualad. Fill them in on what happened in your dimension with Kid Flash."

"How do you know—"Cyberd began, but Jason pointed to his own red helmet and said, "He knows me. Don't worry about it, Sparky. They're the good guys."

"Come, friend. We'll give our report and then check on the others," Kaldur said. He set an easy hand on Cyborg's shoulder and gestured with the other in the opposite direction of the med wing. He caught Dick's eyes before leaving, an unspoken question lingering in the tight press of his lips. M'gann's mental link was gone, but after five years in each other's heads it was impossible to pretend they couldn't all read one another like open books. Kaldur knew Dick was uncomfortable, and was ready to defy Bruce if he was asked to stick around.

Dick flashed a smile he didn't feel, and Kaldur gave the smallest of nods. Message received.

And then there were four.

Maybe it wasn't too late to go with Kaldur.

"Jason?" It crushed something in Dick to hear that tone of voice coming out of Bruce's mouth, especially when he was wearing the cowl.

In response Jason reached up, pulled the red hood off his head, and smiled wide. "One and th—" he began, and that was all he managed before Bruce was reaching forward and crushing him in an embrace that made his leather jacket whine. Jason stood there for a moment before slowly, awkwardly returning the hug.

Dick looked away.

It was his fault. The reason Bruce sounded like that, the reason their Jason was buried six feet under and not here, laughing at this uncharacteristically emotional display. He was the one that told Jason he wasn't ready to join the team. It was his stupid fear, his stupid frustration that made Dick yell at Jason that night. If he'd been less afraid of what he knew could happen, less concerned with thoughts of what his adoptive brother suffered in an alternate universe, he might have noticed how eager the Jason in his own world was to please. If Dick hadn't pushed him so hard maybe he wouldn't have felt the need to prove himself badly enough to go looking for trouble. Maybe then Jason wouldn't have stolen the suit and gone on that mission in place of Dick.

If he'd been a better leader…A better big brother, Jason and Tula might still be alive.

"I hear I died in this world too. That blows," Jason observed.

Bruce pulled away. He looked over Jason's shoulder, scowl set deep. If Dick didn't know any better he'd say Bruce was embarrassed for the hug. "I failed you," he said gruffly.

Jason stepped back and tilted his head in the direction of the other Batman. Distantly, Dick found it funny that he still wore the domino mask underneath the helmet. Jason, his Jason, hated the mask. He used to say that the glue made his skin itch. The first time he pulled one off he'd compared it to ripping a whole box of band-aids off at once. Dick told him he'd get used to it after a while.

Jason hadn't lived long enough to get used to the mask.

"You hear this guy? Acting like he had any say in whether or not I kicked the bucket?" Jason said, just as gruff. After how upset he was the first time he came to this dimension, he had to be mad know that he knew he'd died here too.

The other Batman gave a little, unhappy frown. "Don't joke about that, Jason," he said.

"I mean, I'm the one that died. I should get to joke about it." It was the same petulant grumble Jason used to use to get Alfred to give him more dessert when Dick and Bruce went out for patrol. Dick hadn't noticed it the last time this Jason was here.

"You were really upset about it a few years ago. We," the other Batman pointed to himself and then half heartedly to Bruce," were really upset about it. You don't know how recently it happened in this world."

"Two years. Jason, our Jason, has been gone two years," Bruce said. There was no emotion in his voice this time.

The silence that followed was deep and uncomfortable. Dick slipped closer to the wall and told himself to breathe. Just breathe and stay calm. Jason wasn't trying to rub salt into raw wounds, and even if was, what did it matter? Dick was the one that let him die. Jason could say whatever he wanted with impunity.

"Dickey bird. Kid? You ok?"

Right. You could be the best actor in the world, but it wasn't going to fool anyone else taught by Bruce Wayne. Jason leaned forward, peering closely at Dick.

"No. No, you're not ok. Talk to me. Us," Jason added, glancing up at Bruce and the other Batman.

Dick opened his mouth. Closed it. Felt like he was nine years old again, young and stupid and scared. How could he explain how badly he'd messed up at being a brother when all he'd been trying to do was keep Jason safe? Jason. Tula. Wally. He'd done nothing but screw up again and again for the last five years. It was only a matter of time before he did something that got Tim hurt too.

"I'm sorry," Dick choked out. "I—it's my fault. I'm sorry."

"Nightwing"Bruce began. Dick scrunched his shoulders up and told himself to calm down. Where was all his training? All his control? So what if he'd had to bury a brother for the second time in his life? So what if he was terrified he'd have to do the same thing with Tim? So what if he'd nearly gotten his whole team killed less than two months ago? So what if he'd thought Wally was dead up until three hours ago? He was Nightwing, Dick Grayson, trained by the Batman. He should be better than this.

"You didn't let me die, Dick," Jason said.

"You don't know what happened."

Jason reached out. He curled the gloved fingers of his hand around the back of Dick's neck and gave a soft squeeze. It was the same gesture of support Bruce sometimes gave. "I know what happened. An over eager kid took a suit he wasn't ready to wear yet and went running off into danger. Pretended to be you. From what I hear, it was an ambush and I wasn't the only casualty. Do you know what that means, Dickey bird?"

Dick shook his head. He could see the other Batman standing there behind Jason, just watching him. What a disappointment it must be, to see yourself fall apart in front of Bruce and Jason both.

"It means," Jason said, leaning in close. "That I didn't die alone this time around. I died with friends, comrades. People that I looked up to, respected, maybe even loved. That's already better than the alternative."

Bruce wasn't saying anything. Why wasn't he saying anything? He must have known Dick realized he was the one to blame for Jason's impulsive actions that night. Was he ashamed of the spectacle Dick was making of himself? Maybe he was wondering how a year away in space was enough for all his training to fly right out the window.

"You still died. We tried so hard to make sure that didn't happen, and I messed it up. I pushed too hard and it made Jason do stupid things, make Jason put himself in harm's way when he wasn't ready."

An arm reached out and pulled Dick away from the wall. His face met cool Kevlar. He could feel the bands of muscle under Bruce's arms as he gave out yet another hug. He was going to run out of them soon. Two in one night? Should send him down to the infirmary as well, he was obviously sick.

"How long have you been walking around thinking Jason's death was your fault?" Bruce asked. It was so low even Dick had a hard time hearing the question. Short of Superman eavesdropping, there was no way anyone else in the space station had heard the words.

Dick shrugged, because talking was difficult. This wasn't like grieving Wally with Artemis. He didn't have to tell himself it was important to be strong, to not make the loss about him. Wally was his friend, but Wally was more than that to Artemis. It wasn't like morning Tula with Kaldur and Garth. Tule had been a friend, and ally, but he hadn't been in love with her, hadn't grown up with her. It wasn't the same. Here, now, who did he have to hold it together for? Bruce would figure it out sooner or later anyway, and if last time was any indication it would be another five years before he's have to deal with the fallout of breaking down in front of a Jason twice his age.

"Sometimes bad things happen," the other Batman, the other Dick said. His voice was full of infinite empathy. It was calmer, steadier than Dick remembered feeling in over two years. "It's one of the hardest lessons you're ever going to have to learn. I'm sorry this is the way it came to you."

"You aren't to blame for what happened," Bruce repeated.

His eyes were stinging. Really bad. There weren't actual tears but they were being kept away by force of will alone. The last two years, the deaths, the deception, the constant low level fear for Kaldur and then Artemis, the threat of the Reach invasion, the possibility that Bruce could be convicted of a crime he hadn't meant to commit thousands of light-years away in space, Bart's disappearance, Wally's death and resurrection, all of it slammed into Dick and it would have felt like drowning if not for the arm around his shoulder. Bruce was a rock. Sometimes Dick thought he would break himself crashing into that rock, and sometimes he clung to it because it was the only thing keeping him afloat.

"Batman was my hero when I was a kid," Jason admitted." But Robin, you as Robin, as Nightwing? You were my idol. I wanted to be you, not Batman."

"Being me is what got you killed. I should have been the one on the mission that night. I didn't even know the team was sent out until it was too late," Dick said. And that kind of hit on it, didn't it? Everyone was dead, dying, or nearly dying, except for the twist of fate that had Jason taking the mission Dick was meant to be on.

The muscles in Bruce's arm gave a sharp twitch against Dick's back. Dick pulled away.

Jason's lips pressed together in a hard line before he responded. "If I had known that, I would have taken the suit. Even if I knew I would die, I would have taken the suit. It's selfish, but I would rather have it be me than either of you."

What do you say to that?

"Batman. Um, our Batman, we need you in the lookout. Aqualad and Cyborg have brought something critical to our attention." Superman always sounded like he was a kid called on in a pop quiz when he had to use the loudspeaker in the Watchtower. It was his Clark Kent slipping out, the little bit of shyness that wasn't played up or faked when it came to public speaking. Nice to know no one was perfect.

Bruce scowled at the speaker above the zata platform. "Affirmative. I'm on my way." To Dick he added, "We'll talk about this more later."

He couldn't decide if that was a comforting idea or not. Bruce turned to stalk down the same hallway Kaldur and Cyborg took. Jason hesitated, hopped from foot to foot and finally threw his hands up in a frustrated huff. He glanced back at the other Dick, all dressed up as Batman, did a bit of wordless communication that was impressive considering the lack of mental links, and then trotted after Bruce.

"Hay, Batman, what's your old pal Ra's Al Ghul up to nowadays?" he called as he ran.

"What does Ra's have to do with anything?" Dick asked.

"Don't worry about it," the other Batman said with a smile. It was kind of weird to think of him as "the other Batman" but it was equally as weird to think of him as Dick, too. Richard maybe? He could see himself considering going by Richard if he was willing to take up the cape and cowl. Seemed like similarly bad decisions.

"You don't look pleased to see yourself in this," Richard said, still smiling, pointing to the bat ears atop his head.

"Honestly? I'm not. I didn't…never mind." Too much sharing for one day. That was a whole new bag of worms to deal with, but not now. "Did he retire?"

Richard's smile dimmed, went softer. "No. He died. A few months ago."

"How? Who did it?"

Richard just shook his head. "In his sleep. Peacefully."

That was almost certainly a lie. Bruce would never die in his sleep. Dick was old enough to realize Batman wasn't invincible, but Bruce Wayne would go down fighting or not at all. It was a universal truth, like smog in Gotham and sun showers in Metropolises.

"You and the Batman of this world had a big impact on Red Hood. He was the one to said we should form a group for the crime fighters in our world, like the one that you have here. We started it together. He never used to be one for teamwork."

Richard held his hand out and left it there. When Dick didn't immediately move to take it he wiggled his fingers expectantly. It was a very odd feeling to shake his own hand. "You helped save Jason from himself, and I never got a chance to thank you for that. He meant what he said, you know. That he'd rather die than let us, or Batman, or the little boy working with us as Robin now. I figure, we would all rather take the hit than let someone we care take it in our place."

"Your new Robin got a thing for taking pictures of people while they're on patrol?" Dick asked, rather than respond to the comment. He allowed his hand to drop back down to his side.

Richard smiled so wide it actually made dimples appear. "No. I know who that is, and we're keeping an eye on him, but someone else it Robin right now. You haven't met them yet. Don't worry, you will." Richard laughed. It sounded genuinely happy. "He's a good kid. You'll like him, just be patient when the time comes."

That much Dick could do. He wasn't sure how he felt about knowing another person was wearing the Robin costume, especially if Bruce wasn't there as Batman, but whoever the kid was he had Richard and Jason there to look after him. Maybe Barbara too, if she ever became Batgirl. It had been fun, back when he was Robin and invincible. The best time of his life.

Wally was alive. Bart was alive. M'gann would be fine. Kaldur wasn't under cover any longer. Bruce wasn't lost in space.

Maybe this could be fun again. Not right now, not right away, but soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that didn't seem too out of character for Dick. After all the things in season 2 and all the things he's been through in this story I thought he needed the outlet our he'd explode.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have one more chapter from Artemis and an epilogue, then we are finished.
> 
> Paco and Brenda are characters from Blue Beetle and friends of Jaime's from high school. Still wish we had seen them in the show.

It hurt. Pain shouldn't be new or surprising, but it was. He'd gotten too used to waking up without the marrow of his bones feeling like they were made of sand. It had been months since his brain worked so slowly it might as well have not been there at all. Mom used to whisper lullabies to him when it got too bad, but then she died and Bart had to start singing the songs to himself. It didn't work as well.

Still, old habits die hard. He hummed a few notes, discovered his throat felt like raw meat and promptly gave up.

"Are you humming Hey Jude?"

Oh. Ok. He was dead then. If Wally was asking Bart questions, Bart had to be dead because Wally was dead and only dead people— and sometimes Dr. Fate— could talk to other dead people. Huh. He should be more upset by that realization, but he wasn't. What was the point? He'd stopped the Reach, met his grandfather and the Justice League, was part of an awesome team, had friends for the first time ever, saw the sun, and saved Jaime.

Yeah, that was a lot. Heavy lifting. Totally alright that he wasn't feeling so crash now. No one was ever going to be moded again so he'd done his job. Now it was time to hang out with Wally.

"That's Aunt Iris' favorite song, you know," Dead Wally said somewhere above his left ear.

"I'm dead," Bart replied, so everyone was on the same page.

Death was very dark. There must not be any sun in the afterlife, just like there hadn't been any sun in the future. Which was kind of Bart's past now, wasn't it? And everyone else's never. Time travel was complicated. It shouldn't be so distracting when he was dead and didn't need to worry about it anymore.

"You aren't dead, Bart. Open your eyes. Can you do that for me?"

That sounded like Grandpa Barry, and Grandpa Barry better not be dead because Bart worked really, really hard to make sure that didn't happen. He cracked his eyes open just a sliver and moaned as bright, sharp light burnt them. His lashes fluttered like mad, something watery dribbling down from the corners of his eyes. If felt like tears but he wasn't crying. His brain was going too slow and his tongue felt really heavy in his mouth and the pain was kind of drifting away, which was crash but maybe bad because if he hadn't been dead before he might be dying now—

"There you go, kiddo. Eyes wide open," Grandpa Barry smiled at him from behind the Flash mask. Beside him, leaning close to the bed and grinning so wide it had to hurt, stood Wally. He was still dressed up as Kid Flash, just like he had been the day he ceased.

Bart made an unintelligible sound. Grandpa Barry and Wally both laughed. A hand reached out and stroked damp strands of hair away from Bart's face. His skin was mostly numb, so it tingled in a weird this-doesn't-hurt-but-probably-should kind of way. It took three tries before he could convince his muscles to work well enough to turn over, and then there was Artemis, dressed up all in green like she used to, like he'd seen pictures of but never experienced in real life. She smiled at him too. Everyone was smiling.

Jaime, still suited up mask and all, hovered in a cloud of awkwardness beside her and ever he looked like he was grinning beneath all that blue. Bart had vague memories of Jaime cutting through flashes of pain.

"Are we all dead?" Bart asked. Get the big questions out of the way first.

Artemis shook her head and kept right on stroking his hair. "Nope. No one died."

"Things went so well you guys even managed to un-cease me. How cool is that?" Wally asked. He leaned past Grandpa Barry and wiggled his fingers in front of Bart's face to display how truly not-dead he was.

"I think-there was this rock? It was really angry…" Bart muttered. He remembered a park, and G. Gordon Godfrey insisting he think about something, then nothing but red eyes glowing out from between rocks and pain. A lot of pain. And Jaime ending the pain. Jaime was crash like that when he wasn't moded.

"Darksied. He tried to use you as a stabilizer for a portal generator. He wanted to invade the planet." Was that a second Flash? Yeah, yeah it was. Ok. Cool. Crash. Totally tubular. All that retro slang. Bart liked Grandpa Barry. He was fine with their being two of him. The red haired lady floating up near the ceiling so she could look down at him was kind of unexpected—didn't know where that hallucination came from—but Bart was adaptable. He could learn to adjust.

"Your son is going to be alright now, yes?" the red haired woman asked, looking first at Bart and then at the Grandpa Barry closest to the bed, the one doing most of the talking.

"Bart is my grandson, but yeah. Yeah, I think he'll be alright." And now Grandpa Barry was stroking his cheek too, which was kind of nice. Different than when Artemis did it, but still good. Still safe.

"The rock isn't around anymore?" Bart mumbled. He was falling away, drifting down, peaceful and easy.

"The rock? Does he mean Darkseid?" Was that Wally? If didn't sound like it was coming from the right part of the room.

"Don't worry, hermano, we took care of the rock. He's not coming back anytime soon," Jaime said. Jaime never lied, unless he was on mode, and the scarab had promised never to put Jaime on mode again, so he must be telling the truth. Crash. Totally crash.

Jaime watched as Bart's eyes drifted shut. It took maybe a minute for his breathing to even out into deep, steady breaths. The doctor, Lisa or Leslie, he couldn't remember which, had enough experience with Flash and his family to know that painkillers and properly set bones were largely all she had to do for the injuries to heal themselves. Bart had cuts she'd disinfected and sown up along his side and back, a broken leg she'd set and wrapped up in a soft cast for the times being, and burns on his hands, legs, neck and shoulders, but she insisted sleep was the main thing Bart needed before leaving to check in on Miss Martian.

If not for the fact that Jaime had been around heroes enough by now to know those with some kind of power generally healed faster than the average human he'd be downright terrified for Bart. As it stood, he was only afraid for him. It was a small difference, but an important one.

Artemis and Wally exchanged a look over Bart that seemed loaded, but Jaime didn't know either of them well enough to figure out what it might mean.

The Tamaranian approaches the Impulse. Potential threat posed, recommend termination, Khaji Da said sharply inside his head. Jaime watched at Starfire drifted closer to the bed. She peered over and between Wally and Barry Allen's shoulders, open curiosity written across her face. The long strands of her red hair almost looked on fire when they tumbled over her shoulder.

"Looking for something specific, sister?" Artemis asked.

Jaime didn't think it was meant to be hostal, their hadn't been any real bite in the question and he'd heard Artemis get snappy a few times now. It was a little bit frightening because he remembered how hard she hit back when she was undercover and if that was the kind of damage she did when she wasn't trying to hurt anyone actual anger on her part was to be respected and avoided. Starfire cocked her head to the side, still looking just as fascinated with Bart as she had before Artemis spoke.

"I have never seen a human suffer as this boy has suffered and still live. He is stronger than he looks. This is a human trait, yes?" Starfire asked, looking to Artemis like she was the expert on all things human.

The Tamaranian's interest is unwarranted. Recommend termination, Khaji Da said again, and for a robotic voice inside his own brain, the scarab sounded downright frustrated that Jaime hadn't listened to his advice yet.

"This boy is your grandson," Starfire said, pointing to Flash. "But you are the father of the children my Flash guards in his civilian life, yes?" she continued, pointing to the other, older Wally standing in the corner of the room.

This was new information for Barry Allen, which stood to reason but Jaime hadn't considered until this very moment. Barry didn't know anymore than what Nightwing radioed in to Batman, and all he'd said was, "Darksied attacked. The dimensional portal opened again. Red Hood is back from the other Earth. We won but there are injuries." That wasn't very much information when you got right down to it and most of the information it covered was confusing and unclear to anyone that wasn't part of the Bat…group? Club?

"You're Wally as well?" Barry asked.

Wally Number Two nodded. He hesitated for half a second—a lifetime for someone as fast as he was—and then was across the room hugging Barry tightly. Barry returned the gesture after a baffled glance to the other Wally, who waved his arms encouragingly.

"You're watching my kids? Why? What happened to me?" Barry asked.

Wally Number Two pulled back. He looked down, collecting himself visibly. When he looked back up again he had the air of old sadness about him, the kind of melancholy that you only built up after the loss lingered. "You died," he said. "It was how I met Nightwing. He came and helped me track down Captain Cold. Put the guy away for good, ended up with the beginnings of a group on our hands. Jason calls it the Justice League. I think it sounds a little pompous to be honest."

"I died and you guys started the League?" Barry repeated. Wally Number Two nodded again.

"The kids are great. So is Aunt Iris. We all miss you," he added, giving Barry's arm an affectionate squeeze.

Bart said something once about how glad he was that his grandfather survived. At the time Jaime assumed he meant in a more general way, the same way Jaime himself felt glad that his parents survived. They were almost taken over by an evil alien race after all. Now he wondered if Bart hadn't meant something different. Maybe in his future Barry Allen died long before Bart was born. How different would the world be without Barry Allen in it?

Probabilities and hypothetical theorization are not productive modes of thought, Khaji Da said.

Is that your way of telling me you don't care?

No answer was forthcoming.

"Friends, I think we should tell Batman of Grandson Flash's condition, yes? Batman is always very concerned about injuries," Starfire said. "He is very caring."

A collective moment of stunned silence filled to room.

"Nightwing is the new Batman in their world," Wally clarified. He turned to Barry Allen and continued, "You should go with Starfire and …the other Flash? They need to know what's happening with Bart."

That was a bold faced lie if Jaime ever heard one. Sure, Nightwing—whatever version of him they were talking about—would want to know that Bart was going to be alright, but he didn't have to know that right now. It could wait until later. Wally just wanted to make both Flashes and Starfire leave. Any second now he'd think up an excuse to send Jaime away as well. He didn't blame Wally or Artemis for wanting to be alone, and he definitely couldn't blame them for wanting to be alone somewhere they could also keep an eye on Bart because Bart had a tendency to get himself into trouble when unsupervised, but Jaime didn't want to leave him alone either.

Recommend remaining with the Impulse until injuries are healed. Vulnerability to attack is at critical levels, Khaji Da said helpfully.

Jaime agreed, but it wasn't his decision. He wasn't Bart's family and in a real hospital he would have been kicked out of the room a long time ago.

"Where are you going?" Artemis asked as Jaime began to make his way to the door behind both Flashes and Starfire.

He froze. "I-I was going to leave you guys alone?"

She shook her head and pointed to the vacated spot Barry Allen had been sitting in a moment before. Jaime sat.

"I think we need to have a chat," Artemis said. He fingers were still stroking Bart's hair, brushing it back again and again in smooth, soothing motions.

As awesome as it was to hang out with the people who beat up bad guys in creative and amazing ways every other day, and as confidant in his own abilities to hold his own among that elite group as Jaime was becoming, he wasn't too proud to admit that Artemis was scary. Her eyes were narrowed and shrewd. Wally looked back and forth between them and Jaime told himself it was a good thing that he didn't seem to know what Artemis wanted to talk about either because if it was something bad Wally would be able to guess, right? He would definitely know if Artemis wanted to stab Jaime for something.

Recommend evasive maneuver, Jaime Reyes. Threat to the Impulse detected, Khaji Da said. The cool blue metal of his armor began to slip down over Jaime's fingers. He forced the change back firmly.

"She is not a threat to Bart," Jaime hissed.

Artemis raised an eyebrow behind her mask.

Negative. As the Tigress, harm was inflicted on the Impure. Jaime Reyes, your argument is invalid.

"Why would Artemis be a threat to Bart?" Wally demanded.

Artemis cut in before any response could be given. "I wanted to say thank you."

It was unexpected. Earnest. Jaime wished he had a better frame of reference, wish he'd know Artemis even casually before she went undercover and handed him over to the Reach. Maybe then he would know if he should trust the tone of honest gratitude she used.

As if she could read his mind, Artemis laughed. She propped her elbow up on the bed beside Bart and rested her chin on her upturned palm. "You nearly got yourself killed today to help Bart. You're an important part of this team and if you wanted to ask Bart to, say, a movie—just the two of you—I wouldn't follow you around with a quiver full of arrows or threaten to shoot you with any of them for looking at him."

Jaime had the curious sensation of the room spinning around him while waiting for the floor to open and swallow him whole. Khaji Da insisted he needed to take defensive action and shoot Artemis, but Jaime was too embarrassed to even look at her, let alone aim to shoot. It was like talking to Nightwing, only worse. At least he'd had enough sympathy to pretend like the conversation was casual. Artemis had tiger sharp eyes watching him, even if her lips curled up at the corners in amusement.

"Why would you shoot him for going to the movies with—Oh! A date. You're talking about as a date," said Wally, and for someone that was supposed to be super smart, he sure seemed wanted to state the obvious. Loudly. So that anyone could hear.

Eliminate them both, Khaji Da recommended. No witnesses.

"I wasn't—I didn't—" Jaime stuttered. Because he'd maybe thought about hanging out with Bart more, without the team, without the masks, just the two of them. And maybe he really liked the way Bart's hair did that flippy thing by his eyes, and the way he spoke too fast, and how he saved Jaime's life and all that. He might have thought about maybe considering asking if he could hold Bart's hand while they hung out because that was what Paco said you were supposed to do when you liked someone and Brenda said he should bring flowers.

A hand plopped down on his shoulder and Jaime curled further in on himself. A slight press and Wally had him turned enough in his seat to make eye contact. He was smiling, wide and amused, and displaying more of his white teeth than a smile was supposed to.

"He's never had movie popcorn. We had a talk about it before the whole running-into-another-dimension thing happened. Speedsters have a big appetite. Have fun paying for that." And Wally laughed like he'd won something. "Good luck."

So…they were both ok with him asking Bart…not out exactly. Not on a date. Jaime tried going on a date with Brenda once back in freshman year, and half way through their ice cream she'd asked if it was alright for the date to and the friend hangout to start. Jaime couldn't string two words together the hour and a half they were on the date, but as soon as the date was called off he had no problem talking with Brenda. Bart would go nuts if Jaime couldn't talk for an hour and a half. Better not to even think of it as a date in his own head.

"You're not going to, I don't know, be mad at me if I take Bart to a movie?" Jaime squeaked. Paco was the only one of his friends that had actually dated someone for more than two hours and he said it was important to make sure the older siblings liked you. Wally and Artemis weren't Bart's older siblings but he figured it was kind of the same thing.

Artemis and Wally glanced at each other. Wordless communication was going on again. Wally reached out and squeezed Artemis' hand. Jaime wondered if he should leave the room. It was a very private look.

"Buddy, you treat Bart right and we'll have no problem," Wally said.


	17. Chapter 17

Jaime volunteered himself to stay with Bart so that Artemis and Wally could check on M'gann. It was sweet. The doctor, a Leslie Thompkins, had Bart on enough painkillers and narcotics to keep even someone with his kind of metabolism under for at least a five hours, so they shouldn't have to worry about any more unexpected runaway attempts. Not that Bart would have run on his own last time he was in a med room inside the Watchtower, but it was nice to know that option was off the table.

It was better to know that the ones who tried to hurt him were trapped inside a black hole from now until the end of forever, but Artemis was mean like that. She tended to hold grudges against those who hurt her family and friends.

Wally stopped her outside the door to M'gann's room—where Dr. Thompkins said she would be going when she left Bart—and pulled Artemis flush against his chest. His lips found hers. Artemis pressed as close as she could get but it still wasn't good enough. Wally was under her skin, inside her bones. After almost a year under cover, and over a month thinking he was dead there would never be a way to feel close enough again because how could she ever trust that the moment would last?

"I love you," she said as soon as they pulled away for air. He knew it already, but it was important that the words were fresh, there for him to pick up and carry close.

The smile he gave this time was not the blindingly amused one from the med room. This one was smaller, private, just for her. "Babe, love doesn't even begin to cover it."

"Good. When we get home you can spend as long as you want explaining it to me. In detail," she added, running her fingers across his shoulders, down his spine. Sturdy, strong. No chance that they were going to disappear again.

"It'll be a practical application kind of thing. Real hands on," Wally added. He rest his forehead against hers for another long second and did nothing but breath.

"Sorry, are we interrupting something here?"

Artemis looked past Wally's shoulder to see Kaldur and one of the fighters from the other dimension standing awkwardly at the end of the hall. Cyborg was his name, she thought. The specifics were a little hazy, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was one of the reasons Bart and M'gann were alive, and one of the reasons Wally was home. That was enough to earn him a smile. It felt like she had a lot more to space suddenly.

"It's alright. We were just going to check on Miss Martian," she said. He might be an ally, but she wasn't going to divulge someone else's name without permission.

Kaldur smiled. It was a real one, the kind he used to have all the time back when they were kids and just starting out. He stepped forward and embraced first Wally and then Artemis in a tight hug. When he pulled away one hand lingered on each of their shoulders.

"Today is a good day," he said. He focused in on Wally and added, "We have missed you, my friend.

"Right back at you, man. It's good to be back."

Artemis didn't have a brother, and as much as she loved Dick and Conner, neither of them fit that mold. Dick was a friend, one she trusted implicitly, one she'd walk blind and barefoot into hell for if he asked, but she was never going to shake the small voice in the back of her mind that said Dick was an innocent. He was something rare and precious and even knowing full well that he could take care of himself better than anyone else aside from maybe Batman, Artemis would always feel the impulse to protect him before anything else. It was similar to how she felt about Bart, just on a far less intense scale. Conner she understood better than anyone else on the team. They used to talk—once both of them were comfortable enough bringing the subject up—about what it meant to have fathers like theirs. Artemis understood where all that anger in Conner used to come from, and she understood where it went now because it had been the same thing she felt every time she thought about her father, or mother, or sister for year.

Kaldur was different. Kaldur was kind and loving and noble. He was the best of them, no question. They all knew it, everyone on the original team. Without Kaldur this group, this friendship they had, would never have lasted long enough to become the family they were now. Artemis didn't have a brother, but if she did, she imagined he would be something like Kaldur.

"Let us check on Miss Martian. Our new ally," Kaldur moved to encompass Cyborg with an open palm, "is eager to see she is well."

"She's a tough lady. She was ready to die for us and she'd only just met my team," Cyborg said, shuffling his feet and looking down. He rubbed the back of his neck—half of it was robotic—before looking up and shrugging. "Takes guts. You guys work better together than any of the hero's in my world outside of the bats. They seem to know how to mesh with anyone."

Wally laughed. "It's because your Batman used to be Nightwing and it's hard not to like the guy,' he said, leading the group into the med room.

Conner looked up from the bed as they entered. He had one of M'gann's hands in his own, but he pulled away as subtly as he could short of yanking his hand back. M'gann hadn't woken yet, but J'onn didn't seem too concerned. It could sometimes be hard to read him because he was less expressive than M'gann. He inclined his head in acknowledgement at the new arrivals.

"How's she doing?" Artemis asked.

"Rest is all she needs now," J'onn assured. He smiled at Wally. "It is good to see you are well."

Wally flashed him a bright smiled as he zipped around the bed. He leaned up against Conner's side to look down at M'gann's peaceful face. Conner seemed town between not making eye contact and doing something to express his happiness that Wally was alive. Conner was never very good at emoting. It was why he and M'gann worked so well together. What he lacked in verbal expressions of affection he made up for in mental openness, or so M'gann used to tell her.

"Glad you're back," he settled on at last.

Wally gave his shoulder a light punch and laughed. "Glad to be back. Just don't get all mushy on me."

"I was hoping she'd be awake so that I could say thank you," Cyborg muttered. "Would you pass the message along for me when she wakes up? From my whole team. Without her mental protection I don't think any of the others would have made it."

"Without Miss Martian, none of us would have made it," Conner said. It sounded grudging, but Artemis knew him well enough to recognize the discomfort for what it was. She didn't know the particulars of why M'gann and Conner broke up, but what she did know had a lot to do with those mental powers that saved their butts today.

"Why don't you just tell her yourself when she wakes up?" Wally asked.

"Heading out now," Cyborg said. He shrugged and smiled with ruffle amusement. "Both Batmen say we need to use the box we confiscated from Luthor to get back to our dimension before the juice runs out. I can figure out how to recharge it, but I'd rather do it when we're home and not in danger of destabilizing your dimension with our presence any longer than we have to."

Made sense. It was the same reason Dick's brother couldn't stay the last time he came to this dimension. It was definitely an odd experience meeting Jason Todd (the general team never learned his civilian I.D but it was hard to ignore when Bruce Wayne adopted another kid) as a nine year old child and remembering how she'd flirted with the twenty year old version of him. She would have to check in with Dick once everything settled down. He was devastated when Jason died, seeing a living version of his brother had the potential to really mess with his head.

"You're leaving now? Let me come and say good-bye," Wally said quickly. He darted back to Artemis' side and slung an arm around her shoulder. "Want to come?"

"Lead the way."

"I'm staying here…someone should be with her." And this time Conner found the strength for eye contact. Artemis nodded, Kaldur smiled, Wally flashed him thumbs up. Maybe he and M'gann could move past their history and start working on a better future.

And now she was just being sappy.

They gathered outside the zata tubes. Dick and Batman lingered beside the other Dick and Jason. No hugs were exchanged, they weren't moved to dramatic declarations of love, but Dick's whole posture was different. He stood close to Red Hood, smiled when the other Batman said something from the corner of his mouth. It was the most relaxed he'd been in a long time. Barry Allen, on the other hand, was hugging the Flash from the other world while Starfire lingered politely beside them. She lit up when she caught sight of Cyborg and the others walking down the hallway. She darted forward and flung her arms around Artemis and Wally both.

They were like steel bands around Artemis' back. She felt her feet lift clear off the ground with the enthusiasm of the hug.

"It was glorious to fight alongside you, friends! Please do not forget me," she said, setting them both down again.

Artemis couldn't help herself, the enthusiasm was infectious. She found herself grinning back at Starfire. It made her nervous to have such an unknown literally floating above Bart, but Wally seemed to trust her, and that was good enough for Artemis.

"We'll remember you. Come and visit us sometime," he added, clap;ping Cyborg on the back as he walked past. Cyborg flashed him twin thumbs up and nodded.

"Will do. Ready to head out, team?" the other Batman asked. It sounded chipper and was thoroughly unsettling to hear something so pleasant come from beneath the cowl.

Jason turned and hugged Dick with all his might just as one Batman hugged the other. Kaldur, Wally, Flash and Artemis exchanged silent looked of shock and remained silent because if Batman was hugging people something crazy was happening. Like, end of the world crazy.

"It was a pleasure working with you," the other Batman said. He too acted like no hug had occurred, which was probably for the best because the Batman from her world looked grimmer as if to compensate for his brief moment of humanity.

Cyborg held out the device they took from Luthor and cleared his throat. "Ready everybody?"

Starfire set her hand down on to the corner of the device. The other Flash zipped forward to fist bump Wally, and then zipped back to set his own hand on the device. Red Hood coughed, bowed his head and waved without looking back before setting his hand on the device. The other Batman spared a moment to whisper something into Dick's ear and then he too bounded forward and set his hand down on top of the others'.

"See you around," Red Hood said.

"Take us home," the other Batman commanded.

Wally pulled Artemis closer and rested his cheek against the top of her head.

There was a flash of light, a draining of sound, and then the travelers from another dimension were gone.

Artemis leaned against Wally and felt warm for the first time in a very, very long time.


	18. Chapter 18

Somewhere deep in the mountains, a scream split the still night.

Hours later, a light flickered in the northernmost room of the abbey. It was old, had been there long before the group currently calling it home had taken up residence and it would be there long after they abandoned the structure. A woman leaned across the tangled sheet on the bed and dipped her soft cloth into the cool water on the nightstand. She wrung it out with brisk efficiency and straightened up once more. Slowly, with the air of one well acquainted with the motions, she began to dab the boy's warm forehead.

Fever. Night terrors. The reaction was standard, as far as she knew. No one but her father had ever truly used the pool beneath the abbey's floors and emerged whole, sane, human once more, but this boy had done it. Unwillingly, but that was no matter. The genetic material was stored the moment he died in the ambush, but strands of DNA were not enough for the Lazarus Pit. She'd needed the body, broken and beaten as it might have been.

It took her a week of tense nights and stressful days before she managed to sneak away to Gotham and collect what she needed. Her had to leave her little shadow at the abbey, taking him would have drawn unwanted attention. Her father had eyes everywhere. Besides, there was only so much an eight year old could do to assist with the excavation of a grave and the exhuming of a body. The sight was grisly, the bodie half decayed from the nine months kept under ground. It didn't matter how decayed the body was so long as the dip in the Pit was long enough.

She kept him submerged for three weeks, checking each day that the boy's body had healed just a bit more. Her little shadow followed her down to the pit and back up to the abbey each time, drawn by his curiosity to go where ever she went. It was that curiosity that was going to get her little shadow killed very soon. He was too clever for his own good, and her father's greed knew no end.

Her son was not safe here any long. There was only place left in the world where he would be beyond the Demon Head's reach. She could not take him there without Father knowing she had learned of his planed betrayal.

"When will he ever wake up Mother?"

"Hush, my son. He will wake soon," she said.

"'M wake now," the boy muttered. One hand lifted to push weakly against the cloth dabbing at his forehead.

She smiled. Bruce knew how to choose his little warriors. Risen from the dead and only half conscious, but the boy was already fighting. He would be the perfect one to guide her child to Gotham.

One hazy blue eye cracked open and squinted up at her.

"Talia? Al Ghul?"

"Hello, Jason," she said softly. "How are you feeling?"

Jason Todd tried to lift his head from the pillow and failed. He blinked up at her, eyes fluttering like mad. A small hand pulled at her shoulder. Talia glanced at the demanding look on her son's face, and then smiled back down at Jason.

He blinked past her shoulder, staring at her little shadow.

"Kid?" Jason muttered.

"He is my son, Damian," Talia said. She leaned close to Jason, watched his eyes as they slid in and out of focus in their effort to follow her motion. She cupped his cheek and stroked one finger across his newly healed, soft cheek.

"I brought you back for a reason, Jason," she whispered. "I have a task for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end. Hope you enjoyed! Thank you for all the feedback!


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